We evacuated last night just at dusk. I did not take any photos, so I'll just try to paint some “word pictures”.
We left our home and headed due south, uphill, on a private road that the owner opened to help with fire evacuation. This took us to Skyline Truck Trail via Wisecarver Road. From this intersection we got the first views of the pall of smoke over the town of Jamul (to our west at that point) and Lyons Peak (to our south). We could also see a smaller plume of smoke to our east, over the Barrett Lake area. The normal evacuation route would be through Jamul down to state 94, but I was not comfortable heading straight into that smoke.
So instead, we headed east on Skyline Truck Trail, down to Lyons Valley Road, east on there up to Japatul Road, and then out through the town of Descanso to the northeast. As we traveled up Lyons Valley Road, with Gaskill Peak on our left and Barrett Lake on our right, we could see a scene straight out of hell on our right, to the south of Barrett Lake. This was in the Barrett Canyon area, and on the hills to the southeast of Barrett Canyon. Huge flames, smoke plumes, and long trails of wind-blown embers. This was all far enough away from us so that we didn't feel threatened – but close enough to be easily visible and scary-looking.
By the time we got to I-8 in Descanso, it was dark. We drove slowly down to Chula Vista along the freeways, slowly because our pickup was loaded to the overflowing with our stuff, and we were afraid that high speed would blow stuff out. We arrived at our friend's home in Chula Vista around 8:30 PM, and slept fitfully last night.
Just a couple of minutes ago, we got a clear view to the north from Lyons Peak – and there are no smoke plumes in the direction of Lawson Valley. We can also call our house and get our answering machine, so we know our house is still there and still has power…
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