Extent of the fire at the camp

Here  is a crayon representation of where the fire came through the camp. My crayon skills have 

degraded a bit, but as you can see, while it came close to some buildings, the fire did no damage. On a

 positive note, it cleared out a lot of brush. It gives us some ideas for some new trails into the canyon.

This sketch represents "The Hand of God" 

infared game camera

I have a game camera mounted on a tree to watch the driveway. Most pictures are of Waste Management coming in to dump the dumpsters. Here are a few of the 1029 pictures it took.

This is the normal bucolic view.

The fire has swept past most of camp and is burning in our neighbors property. Note the time and date stamp on the picture.

The firemen who were already on the property, moved in

I believe this is a back fire being set by the firefighter on the right. They were successful in their efforts. I heard they fought the other side of this with a bull dozer.We are grateful the fire stayed on the ground.

This is a few days latter showing a hand crew cleaning up their chainsaws, They have some Coleman stoves out warming up some food from their bag meal for the day.They were posted here for the night. They did not use the yurts because they are on duty for 24 Hrs.We heard that the soccer field gave them a safe place for their trucks and a place to retreat to if the fire exploded 

Some more chimney fire pictures

The camp did not lose any structures. Immensely grateful to God and the men who fought the fire. We  got to the camp Friday 8-26 about 6PM and got over an hour tour with blow by blow commentary from the firemen. We learned a back fire was set at the rear of the caretakers. It reduced the flames to about 60' or so. With out the back fire, the flames would have been closer to 100' and the fire fighters would have had to retreat.

 The above photo is looking from the caretakers house toward the bathhouse which is beyond the oak. The trail to the canyon shows on the right side on the distant slope. There was still some smoke but this is fog.. Just what was needed to reduce the heat and help beat the fire down

 Coming around the corner of the house a little. You can see the fibar for the zip swing. The tree did not catch fire.I am amazed that there is brown grass along with burnt grass.

 The burn marks were attempts at back fires.. It burnt erratically in this area. Not sure why. You can see the kitchen supply trailer to the right of the play structure. Unscathed would be the word. Fire trucks are getting ready to move out. Our neighbor came over and brought his dogs. Again this  is fog not smoke.

This is the crew that was on site when the fire roared up to camp. They are from southern California. When they first got to the camp it was one truck, 4 guys. Slowly trucks would roll in to join the fight. We heard they went into our shop and grabbed 18 shovels, chainsaw and sickle mower. They cleared around the yurts. Ran the mower down slope of the caretakers, all to make it defensible

Here is the back of Jon's RV covered with gel. Yurt deck railing in the distance

Back side of yurt 6 and 7. Unscathed as well. No ember burns just a little smell of smoke. Hard to see but a bull dozer made a pass here.

This is the back side of the chapel with Jennifer in the view. Three or so dozer tracks and some singed grass. The amazing thing is the fire stayed on the ground. It did not climb the trees.

 Down in the canyon near the tee in the service road a tree was smoldering. They put this out.

 Here is another hot spot across the creek. Tree root system smoldering away. I had brought 10 gallons of water down, which they used in the previous photo and above.

 A little break time on the deck of yurt 8.

 Back top side this is a big oak that had been shedding branches. The trees are stressed by 5 years of drought. In the background is the bathhouse. Back and to the  right is the trail down to the creek.I did not take a picture but to the right it is a scorched earth hillside.

 This is looking over the camp BBQ at where the oak had been growing for a long time.It was dying and they cut it down before the fire charged up the slope. You can see the far slope and the fire did not burn everything. My guess is it burned about 30%. Rather amazing isn't it.

One last picture. This is just off the side of the shop. The small structure is the camp well. The fire crossed through the fence onto our neighbors yard.. You can see how it stayed on the ground. They put it out with a bull dozer. Thanks be to God for his mercies

OK one more. This is near the fire pit with our hose bib in view.This is some scorched earth that occurred when the fire swept east. The far ridge is pretty well denuded of brush. This is the knob the cross is on. You can see as you look to the left, it is wiped bare by the fire.



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Chimney fire , rebuffed

All photo's were taken by Katrina Hearne, forwarded to me by Marty Wize

 Pictures taken from west of the camp looking generally S SE from our neighbors property. Received them as text messages. Jennifer and I were in Santa Clara the whole time. Tried to retrieve some items from the caretakers unit Sunday AM but were turned back at Interlake and Bryson Hesperia. Power to the area was cut Sunday evening. For the camp, no power means no water.

 I think this picture is the drainage behind the chapel. Viewed into camp from the west. Suspect the power pole is near the orchard along the entrance driveway. Tuesday morning 6:43 AM

 The ridge behind (south) of the camp. Monday night 8-22-2016

 You can see the pole barn and the kitchen trailer through the smoke on the left side of the picture. Monday afternoon 8-22-2016

 Marty Wize's front yard looking East. The Wize's are our neighbors to the west across Smith road. Tuesday5:30 PM

 12:30 PM Tuesday, firetruck coming down the driveway into camp near our gate

 1PM Tuesday kitchen trailer and dining pavilion in the background. Yurts are behind the bull dozer but not really visible. The trees around the yurts are not singed. Most encouraging,

Tuesday 8-23-2016 The soccer field looking East. Big oak just left of center is on our fence line  in the distance, it is along the West side of the soccer field. We can make out the camp truck, our SUV, Danny's tractor along with various Cal Fire vehicles. The chapel is behind the big oak and is not visible. We heard from Danny, our neighbor to the North, that a crew spent the Saturday  night on the field. What we hear is the camp weathered the storm without structure damage. The caretakers unit has fire retardant gel on it. Not sure how that will clean up. The fire still poses a threat but the fuel load is greatly reduced. Our first trip down will be for assessment, likely a day trip till we have power. The refrigerator and freezer will need to  be emptied and hopefully they can be cleaned up. What we have observed is God doing his fire strategy thing. The fire circled east first and then moved toward the camp and but was rebuffed by some very hard working firemen. Thank you and blessings on those men who are doing it again tonight just down the road a piece.

PBCC week at Whisper Canyon

The high school advance team comes in on Saturday to get organized for the week. They do a VBS program in King City at three of the churches. Wednesday they do a clothing give away in town. Here is a little of camp life.

In the mornings they have a time of prayer before heading into town.

Their food pantry on the left. here is a some of them enjoying dinner.

Silly skits are in the mix as well. Here the two youth pastors demonstrate how to use whip cream

 More to follow

Star Gazers

Early September, we had astronomers come to Whisper Canyon. For the previous eight years they had used Lake San Antonio. I hear it was a barren 5 acre parking lot, but the viewing was pretty good being away from city light. What was fun was they camped in new and creative places. Below is one site just below the shop in Kavanaugh creek.

 Many of them just camped next to their telescopes.

 This was Thursday PM as they were rolling in

  They did have some pretty nice scopes, as one would expect. These folks take their star gazing serious. This scope had a mirror to capture the light. There might have been 8 of these with minor variations.

Carl was a digital photographer of the stars. Home was just outside of Albuquerque NM. He has rigged up this cart to move his equipment in and out of his van. It has batteries underneath and a

winch to move it up and down his ramps.

Saint Elizabeth Catholic Church, Milpitas

   

This weekend we hosted a group of young folks from Milpitas. There were about 80 students from 7 to 17 years old. They have a club called TNTT which promotes God as well as teaches about their culture.  They were supported by about 40 parents which worked the kitchen and assembled a stage and worship tent. This was a student lead program.

 Above is the stage they erected. the projector was behind and it was well secured for the breezy conditions. Below is a place of worship and prayer. They also had Eucharist in the tent/gazebo. 

 

Good thing I leave a milk crate in the kitchen area, when you put a 50 quart pot on it , well, stirring it can be a problem 

They ate in shifts. First the  students got a meal then the adults ate. We were concerned about the limitation of the dining quarters but their system worked well. 

They had prayer bags where you could drop off a note to someone in the the group. They originally were under the blue canopy by the worship gazebo. This is similar to PBCC having a Barnabas board for leaving encouraging notes.

Saturday AM they had different stations they went to. Skits were practiced songs were sung.
The weather changed Saturday night. The lightning was visible about 10 PM and lasted till dawn. It got close enough to add thunder about 2:30 AM into dawn  the rain started then as well. We got over 1/2" during the night, and another 1/2" between 10AM and 4 PM. Hopefully, it will help some of the trees, which are drought stressed.

 So the activities Sunday morning were in the dining pavilion. They held mass and we heard "How great thou art" being sung several times.

We had one motor home on the soccer field which make it off successfully.  This car had some challenges with street tires. Fortunately, he had some friends.

1ST Baptist of Stockton

This was the third year this group of Jr highers choose to visit Whisper Canyon.

It was unusually cool for a July visit. Which actually was nice. There were about 40 in the group with their leaders.

Last year they helped disassemble the steps to the water slide. I made a couple trips down during the year, to remove the wood but it needed two more trips this week, to haul it out of the canyon and stage it for the dumpster. They helped move the carport frame back to the side of the shop, hauled about six loads of branches from a fallen grey pine and racked 3 trailer loads of leaves from behind the boathouse. This was a working vacation for them.

Last year their was a fire just North of camp as they arrived. This year it was a fire to the south. Nether fire got close to the camp, still they are disconcerting with the dry conditions.

Home Schoolers

Some families from Atascadero area came for a class in creation science.

The kitchen is an important part of the camp experience

 

The merry go round is always popular with the students

Framers came for a weekend

We had the some of the framers come back to Whisper to share the camp with their families back in June.

Sweet time having them at camp. Of course Salvador wanted to work, so he made some steps to one of the Yurts

They came out looking very nice. Here they are with his son, grandson at the railing.
He also rebuilt the seating around the upper fire pit. It looks very good