Valley Fire in Nor Cal
 

This one hit home for me. Middletown, CA, pop. 1300, the gateway to Harbin Hot Springs where I lived and worked for several years was more or less in the middle of the path of the fire - reports have it that maybe 70 - 80% of the town burned to the ground. Talk is of 1000 homes or more destroyed in the broader area. The Hot Springs resort, about 4 miles north of town, reportedly completely destroyed as well. Many historic buildings as well as newer ones. Photos:

Photo Galleries and Photo Maps of Harbin Hot Springs | Harbin Hot Springs

The place has quite the history. People once came from SF via stage coach to 'take the waters.' It burned down once before in modern times - 1894. It was rebuilt and a gym was added. Boxer Jim Jeffries trained there around 1900. A former resident wrote a book of history of the place with photos of the different eras.

Video of harrowing escape:

Bad, bad night in Middletown (video) - LA Observed

A horrific fire.

It's a first for me. It wasn't my home but it was at one time. Harbin Hot Springs was an idyllic place.

It's pretty dismal. An SF Chron reporter hiked to the scene and took some photos. There's a video here that does a panorama facing one end of the swimming pool over to the other end. I can see that most everything is gone. Sobering stuff.

Well-loved Harbin Hot Springs ravaged by Valley Fire; pools survive - SFGate

OTOH, the water still runs. They're bound to rebuild.

So sad, hopefully yesterday's rain helped a bit.

To give some idea, the fire was about 96 square miles. Slightly larger than Brooklyn. Imagine the entirety of Brooklyn, on fire.

Rain? :confused:

But thanks for the well wishes.

I think he meant the rain that fell on the fire area, and is forecasted to do again today. It isn't much, but when firefighters talk about single digit changes in temp and humidity as being significant, I'm sure it helps.

Just a little bit of rain in the beginning of the week made all the difference on our own local fire. Twice the size of the Valley Fire, the Rough Fire has been ravaging our local mountains for about two months now. Seems we had better luck protecting structures though. It isn't out, or even completely contained yet, but it's looking a lot better.

MV