Bad day for me. This afternoon a fire broke out on Marsh Cr Rd and rapidly spread uphill into a mixed area of private property and the State Park itself, just below Lion Point of the NW Peak of Diablo. I was there just a month ago on the last relatively cool day of June photographing the change of season colors, including a lot of tall dry grass. A lady on horseback had to dismount because her horse was spooked by my tripod and Sinar. I had already removed my darkcloth because that can really scare a horse if the wind waves it around. We had a friendly conversation about how beautiful the time of year is there, and I found out she had a forty acre ranch immediately adjacent to the Park. Well, in tonite's helicopter footage, you can see her big house and barn totally destroyed in mere seconds. There goes someone's dream retirement. I don't know if there was any time to evacuate the horses. But it has spread into some of the hiking trail areas. I hope some of the magnificent oaks in there survive. Sometimes grass fires move fast enough to spare trees. But there was terrible black smoke from where the Park parks its fuel and dozers, etc, ironically for making fire breaks, which weren't even vaguely effective this time. Second fire on the slopes of Diablo this month.
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