Fire at Oakbridge, CA

We Indians know California as the land of CALTECH, the institute which is comparable to MIT in Engineering education, and Los Angeles and Hollywood where all the movies in USA are shot.
But California has more than its share of woes.
Being located on a earth fault, they are regularly battered with earthquakes.Being located near the Pacific Coast they are blown hot and cold by the winds and being a hot climate they have regular fires which cause huge devastation.
One just reads about these in the papers and is not affected unless someone near is caught in the the natuaral calamity.
A fire raging there since 14th November, caught one of our boys, Edwin Bernard.
I would say God was very kind to them and they escaped but many of their friends lost everything.
Here is his account of the incident.


Hello Radeshyam,

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/11/danny-rios-is-a.html

I wanted to share this link that provides text and videos of the
Sylmar Fire that started a few days ago on November 14, 2008,
a couple of miles to the East of where we live. The raging west
blowing winds, speeds of high as 70 mph quickly spread the
flames to where we live and beyond.

If you Google our address, 14053 Saddle Ridge Road, Sylmar,
CA 91342 and move the map to the right, you will see streets
next to Stetson Ranch. That is Oakridge Mobile Home Park where
500 out of the 612 homes were completely burnt to the ground.

At midnight, fire trucks and police cars stormed into our area to
prepare for the oncoming inferno and to warn all of us to leave
our homes immediately. We were directed to go to the local
evacuation center, the gym of Sylmar High School.

Before the fire reached our location it destroyed 500 homes in
Oakridge. The above links show several videos of the Sylmar
fire as well as other fires that are raging in the Los Angeles area.

We were very fortunate that the firemen were able to save the
200 homes in our area. When we returned we saw how close
we came to disaster. All the vegetation on the hillside next to
our homes as well as the surrounding vegetation were completely
burnt.

However, the homes across the street as well as those on either
side of ours suffered only minor fire damage such as singed parts
of the outside as well as burnt trees and bushes. Somehow our
home had no damage at all, except ash blown in through gaps
in the doors and the windows. We were lucky.

What we went through was nothing compared to the residents
of the Oakridge Park. Several of our friends have lost their homes.
Many residents are in the 80's and 90's and will have to start
all over again.

Living in California has several hazards such as earthquakes,
fires, floods and high winds. And these are just the natural ones!
We can say we survived the 1994 Northridge earthquake and
the 2008 Sylmar Fire. What can be next?

Keep up the good work in maintaining communications between
the Old GMS Boys. If you wish, please share this with them.

Cheers!

Edwin Bernard
Class of 1962 (almost! I left in 1961, a year before Certification)

P.S. We have 2 dogs and four cats and had to save them too!
But that's another story.