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Sunday, October 28, 2007

California’s Wildfires - A Dressage Barn Flees the Inferno
By Kathy Beal for DressageDaily.com

Within the period of several hours, the beautiful hills of Fallbrook had turned into an inferno as the fires leapt from one wooded and brushed canyon to another settling on the charming Valley Oaks Mobile Home Park. As I transported my final load of horses, I looked back to see a sky black, not grey, with smoke as two-thirds of the 150 homes in the park succumbed to the Rice Fire. Our sleepy, friendly community was now a disaster zone. The Valley Oaks Mobile Home Park and several nearby Pala Mesa Resort condominiums were consumed by fire.

Ocean breezes usually keep Fair Winds Farm cool, but smoke and ash from the fires were impacting even the air quality there. Our hosts, Elaine and Hayden, made us and our horses feel at home in the midst of this chaos. The horses were all housed in a lovely mare motel of generous size. They even had turnout on one of the farm’s ten irrigated pastures. With the horses safe, my concern turned toward making sure our family stayed together.

My husband, Dan, who had ignored sheriff’s orders, was still at home, watering the roofs of the buildings. After hearing that a neighbor’s home instantaneously caught fire due to downed electrical lines, Christina and I returned to convince Dan to come with us. We slept in the barn the first night listening to myriad sirens and watching a windblown, starless sky. The horses amazingly seemed calm.