LABOR DAY WEEKEND 1997

A large brush fire between Anza and Rancho California burned 1100 acres on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. While the Anza site was never in danger, flames could be seen on the hills west of Highway 371 and air tankers could be seen on the horizon fighting the fire through much of the afternoon. By late afternoon a thick cloud of smoke obscured the Sun and rained ash over the site.

 I first noticed a small puff of smoke in the west shortly after 11 AM while riding into Anza with Russ and Stephanie Tanton to get supplies. By the time we headed back the smoke had grown into a dirty "thunderhead". Distances can be deceiving. It looked to us as if the fire was in the Wilson Valley Road area near Highway 371. In reality the eastern edge of the fire was in the Sage area several miles west of Highway 371.

All though the afternoon we watched as the smoke grew and began to drift towards us on a steady easterly breeze. By 2 PM the site reeked of smoke and ash began to fall. We had to face the possibility that we would be clouded out in a most unusual fashion. We could see clear skies to the south over Palomar Mountain and clear skies to the north. But the west was filled with dark smoke, the skies overhead and stretching to the east were dirty brown.

As amateur astronomers do when faced with the possibility of being clouded out, we speculated on whether conditions would possibly clear for evening viewing. Was the fire under control? Would the wind turn around to the west as Wayne Johnson suggested often happens at Anza. If it did would the smoke clear out before dark. I called the U.S. Forest Service and got the bad news. The fire was not under control. So at 4:30 PM we broke camp and made our way down the hill.

Looking to the right you could see the fire stretch out for several miles in the hills above Vail Lake. I reached Temecula shortly after sunset and saw a most incredible sight in my RV rear view mirrors: golden glowing lines of fire leaping into black skies that slowly turned into the dark blue of deep twilight. I have never noticed the sky being so dark blue. It was obvious that the black clouds created the contrast needed to really see the dark blue nature of the twilight.