For all the listeners of my Sirius shows, here's the minute by minute rundown of the California blaze of Oct 12th - 15th, now called 'The Sesnon Wildfire".  It burned its way to us on Oct 14th. This is the story of the firefighters heroic stand at our house. (It's followed by a youtube link for a mini-video I shot). Krista and I have had so many calls and e-mails asking if we are OK (thanks!) that I thought I’d put yesterday’s experience in words. Oct 14th, 2008.   7am.  It’s the morning of the day that every person who lives in the rugged California foothills dreads but knows will inevitably come – fire day.  It begins early with a phone ringing.  It’s Mel, our next-door neighbor warning us that the Sesnon fire has changed direction.  It’s now just behind us.  Prior to this, despite its proximity and size – more than 10,000 acres burned - the fire had not been moving in our direction.  The raging Santa Ana winds had been pushing it west.  But somehow it is now burning against the wind and heading our way. 7:30am.  I head up the trail into the hills behind our house to check.  600 yards up I can see the smoke and hear the unmistakable crackle of flames as the fire eats through twenty years of dense undergrowth.  Mel was right; the fire is coming, and coming fast. 8:00am.  Krista gets the animals ready in case we have to evacuate then packs a couple of suitcases.  What do you take?  Photos?  Hard drives?  A favorite dress?  I go into the gully to the north of the house.  This is the way the fire will come.  To my dismay, despite our brush clearance the gully is full of bone-dry tumbleweeds blown in by the Santa Anas – or as the early settlers appropriately called them ‘the devil winds’.  With gloves and a rake I spend the next hour as the smoke gets thicker dragging the tumbleweeds away from the house to the base of the hill, pushing them into a huge pile.  Then with a long extension on our hose allowing us to get 200 feet from the house I start soaking the inflammable heap of vegetation.  I leave the hose on spraying the pile.  Maybe it will act as a barrier.  Krista asks me to be careful about stepping on the flowers as I make my way back down. 9:30am.  The first strike team arrives in our cul-de-sac.  Seeing the engines and wanting to make sure they have room we move the cars and evac the animals.   Within minutes there are a dozen firetrucks crammed into our dead end street.  The fire chief tells us they have assessed the fire and we are directly in its path.    Because of this they have decided to make their stand here.  If our house goes the fire will leap from the hills into the residential area and burn through the homes.   Last year more than 1800 houses were lost in a similar situation, the chief tells us it will not happen again. 10:00am.  The news trucks arrive at the end of our street.  Alphabet soup – CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN.  This is where the action is going to be.  The police roll through, loudspeakers blaring, “This area is under mandatory evacuation.  All persons must leave now”.  I tell the fire chief I’m not leaving, what should I do?  He says to close all windows and blinds, keep the eaves wet and to open the attic in case embers get inside and start a roof blaze.  Krista, the amazing wife that she is, says she’ll stay with me and help. 10:15am.  Our friend and neighbor, Ron, makes his way through the police lines to help.  I tell him about the hose line on the hill.  Ron says he’ll fight from there and makes his way up the gully. 10:30am.  As the news announces that the Sesnon fire is now out of control being driven by 75mph winds and has consumed 13,500 acres, black smoke billows over our hill.  The monster is here. Using our back yard as a staging point, the strike teams drag their massive hoses across the lawn and up into the gully.  All thought of ‘careful with the flowers’ is gone as a fence blocking their way is torn down.  The strike team relieves Ron who moves closer to the house and continues spraying with the hose dampening the way the fire is headed. 11:00am.  Chaos.  It’s hard to breath with all the smoke and ash.  And conversation is virtually impossible as one helicopter after another soars through the smoke dropping hundreds of gallons of water on the advancing wall of flame.  Where are the super scoopers?  The fire chief tells us that it’s too dangerous for the fixed wings to fly in close.  It’s too hot and the thermals are raging thousands of feet up. 11:15am.  More fire companies arrive.  Yuba City, Sacramento, Silicon Valley, San Diego, Susanville.  The whole state is converging on our little street in Granada Hills.  They are not backing down.  Six large red trucks pull up from Fenner Canyon Department of Corrections and unload their welcome cargo.  More than one hundred inmates in orange fire suits who are training as fire fighters while in prison.   Today they will put that training to the test.  Armed with picks and shovels they head up our hill to construct a man-made firebreak. 11:30am.  The police department enter the house and tell us to leave.  We tell them no, we’re watching the attic, eaves and trees in the back yard.  If anything catches alight we will be there to put it out before it can spread..  The fire department knows we’re here and we are staying. Noon.  Flames stream sixty feet into the air and black smoke billows as the trail I had walked on four hours before is lost.  “We’re letting it burn,” says the chief.  “But we’ll save the houses”.  Our neighbors on one side flee their home as the flames lick against their fence.  Our other neighbors, Mel & Kurt, stay.  If there are any spot fires in their house, Kurt will be there. 12:15pm.  The hill is ablaze.  Fortunately our brush clearance has worked and the fire roars down toward the gully on its path directly toward a hundred homes.   Confined in the steep gully the fire reaches the mass of soaked tumbleweed and slows down. This is the moment the strike teams have been waiting for!!!  The firefighters attack with hoses from the ground as the aerial bombardment increases.   It is non-stop as one helicopter after another unloads onto the flames from above.   Thank God the reservoir is just a mile away.  They can drop their desperately needed payloads, race over to the reservoir for more water and be back in less than ten minutes. 12:30pm.  The smoke changes color.  From black to white.  It’s not consuming fuel as it was before.  The chief smiles for the first time that day.  “It’s passed your house.  You’re safe.”  The helicopters divert two hundred yards to drop over Mel & Kurt’s house as a stubborn fire breaks out in a small ravine at the edge of their property.  In fifteen minutes they have it knocked down. 1:00pm.  Chain saws echo across the hills behind us as the prisoner fire fighters take down smoldering trees.  Two strike teams remain in our back yard watching for flare-ups.  Ron puts down the hosepipe for the first time in hours.  The fire chief tells us we can bring the animals back.  I hug Krista and we choke back the tears of happiness. Post-script.  A strike team is still in our driveway.  They will be here for another couple of days.  The hills are full of fire fighters going through the ash and embers checking for hot spots.  The trail is gone.  It looks like the still shots of Hiroshima.   Hopefully the animals up there, the coyotes, deer, squirrels, etc… made it out.  It will come back.  And thanks to the efforts of hundreds of unsung heroes we are still here along with our friends and neighbors.  They stood; they fought and stopped the fire in its track. Click here for video clip