Smoky mornings

The Basin Fire is now over 150,000 acres and 79% contained. The IC says that the back-burning was successful and has now finished, so we're a bit confused about that remaining 21% that's uncontained. Anyway, it's been smoky here this morning (much more so than has become 'usual') as they continue burnout operations to eradicate the islands of unburned fuels.

The number of people fighting the fire is beginning to drop even as thousands of acres burn each day. I imagine that this shows that they have confidence in the firelines.

The roadblock out on Carmel Valley Road was fairly low-key yesterday evening and we hope that the voluntary evacuation will be lifted tonight. All of the roads will then be freely open. However, there is still a lot of fire traffic on the road so if you are coming down, watch out for that.

Abbot Steve has gone into Tassajara to work on the emotional clean-up from the fire. A community meeting was scheduled for last night that we all here at Jamesburg were sad not to be able to attend.