Fire in Ventura County - Danger to Richard?

[David A]

Thousand Oaks lies in Ventura County, where the current big fire is out of control.

Is there any danger to Richard's home in Thousand Oaks? Obviously his family is most important, it would also be a tragedy if they were forced to leave with little warning, and Richard's collection were to be lost.

Any Southern Californians that can offer their view on this? Based on the map of the fire I see, it looks like they are fairly safe, but...

 

[Carpe diem]

Looks like he is out of danger for now, the fire is way to the north and burning west of him. I heard the fire burnt all the way to the Pacific Ocean in the town of Ventura. Thousand Oaks is on the Ventura/LA County line. There is a huge fire burning in the exclusive Bel Air section of LA right now. The fires will thrive as long as the Santa Ana Winds continue. They think that by tomorrow they will subside.

 

[David A]

Thanks Carpe Diem!

 

[Buried Alien]

Richard lives in a zone that presently is not directly threatened by the fires, but there are multiple fires burning in a 20-mile radius around his location.

 

[Geographer]

Keep in mind, out of the 15,000 square miles (approximately) that make up all of "Southern California," only 10 square miles have burned so far. That's 0.0006 percent of the land area. The news tends to present a certain perspective (sensationalize) these events that seem to form a particular view in the mind of those not familiar with the area. But don't let me do the same in reverse: these fires are bad...really bad. Not because of their size, but because of their unusual proximity to high-density urban areas. How this relates to Richard? Thousand Oaks is a wooded canyon area. In fact, his house lies in a subdivision, in a canyon, with wooded hills all around. In contrast, his home in Downey was on the flat inland coastal plane. The nearest wooded hills were approximately seven miles away with a lot of concrete and asphalt in-between. So, I'm sure he's nervous...as anyone else should be that lives on the fringe of the urban-wildland interface. And I say this from a perspective of one who lives in Southern California, in a pine forested mountain, and all to experienced with evacuations from wildfires.

 

[David A]

Thanks, folks, for the input and clarifications.

 

[newvillefan]

I’ve thought about this a few times this week and wondered the same thing. But then I checked the location of the fires compared to Richard’s location and he’s around 40 miles away from the danger.

 

[Rick-An Ordinary Fool]

It's still a wake up call especially after seeing the recent video of his collection and Carpenters legacy material...stuff that can't be replaced, really scary news coverage of those fires.