Basin Fire Complex

June 21-July 25  2008

Within days of starting, helicopters started bucketing water from Bass lake

Some had to get down pretty close to the water!

Others were a hundred feet up

By 4th of July weekend, the fire was coming closer to our back property line

As it crested Uncle Sam mountain, the flames were about 100' high.

Bombers started to work on Blue Rock Ridge firebreak

Spotter planes leads plane in, at one time there were 9 bombers circling to dump retardant

Super Scooper

DC10 would just be right above us as it circled in.

Several miles of fire front

a few days later moving over the next set of ridges

Some of the miles of fire breaks we cut in to protect the ranch

Big Pines burns at night, flames were incredibly high, hundreds of feet, the sound was overwhelming!

Big Pines after the fire, our Ponciano Ridge would be just to the left off the photo, Blue Rock Ridge fire line can bee seen at the base of the photo, then in the upper left heading towards Los Padres Dam, the center of this photo is what burned at night in the previous shot. The fire got within a mile of our back line, but was stopped here.

Same area from our back line, noticed it is burnt down to the rocks

Sunrise over Carmel Valley ~ Mid July