• Local Volunteerism

The Holy Fire dominated the news for more than a week. It burned right down the hill and many neighborhoods were under mandatory evacuation orders. 

Today the skies are clearer and the billowing columns of smoke are no longer prominent above the ridgeline. The fires are now 100% contained, but that doesn't mean they aren't still smoldering among the nearly 23,000 acres that have been affected.

Link to CalFire's incident info page.

Which brings us to the subject of this blog: Local Volunteerism.

Lisa Watkins and Barry Puckhaber of Parker, Arizona started to gather donated supplies to bring to the first responders. She is the bar manager at the Fraternal Order of Eagles 4419 in Parker, and he works for Parker Unified School District. (From Parker, Az? Yes, it's still about Local Volunteerism)

Barry Puckhaber on the left, Lisa Watkins on the right, and the goods in the middle.

Lisa grew up in Wildomar, over on Shoemaker Drive, graduating from Elsinore High School.

They thought they were headed this way a week ago, but once others in their area heard about the donation effort, they wanted to join in. 

Parker's Cub Scout Pack 16 donated a case of Gatorade, toothbrushes and toothpaste and box of corn nuts.  Others from the area donated items like nonalcoholic wipes, granola bars, clean socks, Propel, Pedialyte and the like.

The pickup bed was filled with various supplies that had been donated to the cause.

As it turns out, members of the Buckskin Fire Department 1101, local to the Parker area, were sent to fight the fires in California. The two weren't apprised of such until just a couple of days ago after they were already well into the donation drive.

This donation letter from the Eagles to the local Walmart helped bring in a
donation of $75 and discounts on other purchases made for the first responders.

The local angle is further established as longtime Wildomar resident, Gloria Allred (no, not that Gloria Allred ☺), Lisa's mom, had also been participating in a local donation effort when the flames were their highest. She listed Albertsons, Ace Hardware, and Barons as key donors in the effort.

My favorite quote from the conversation came from Lisa when she related a story about being asked why she was taking donations. 

A woman had asked her, "Why are you [asking for] donations to take down there?"

Lisa was taken aback and responded, "Excuse me?"

The woman followed up with, "That's why we have FEMA."

After a few more exchanges that didn't make much headway with the woman, Lisa said to her, "You know what? I'm FEMA!", which brought some laughter from us all. 

She continued, "I said, '"We are FEMA! Those donations... we are acting [as FEMA]."

You have to admire the spirit that Lisa and Barry have, one that isn't waiting for the government to show up. One where everyday members of the community can fill the void in the meantime. 

They'd be the first to tell you that it was a team effort that got the goods together. I'll take the blame for not knowing more of the names of the people that didn't make the trek to SoCal. 

I'm sure none of them were doing it in hopes of getting any recognition... and Lisa told me that she had no idea that her mom had asked if I'd be interested in blogging about it. ☺ 

Just people doing good things for other people, because they are so moved.

The donated items were delivered to appreciative faces at Wildomar's Station 61, La Cresta's Station 75 and Station 10 in Lake Elsinore. 

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The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It's about what you're made of, not the circumstances.
– Unknown

Wildomar Rap is neither a tuber nor a shelled glob of future fowl. Therefore, direct contact with boiling water is assiduously avoided.

This blog was produced for viewing on a desktop or a laptop. Though it's been optimized for smartphones, the formatting can look odd on a smartphone or if you get this delivered through email (such as missing video links). Link to proper format.

• Fire: Honeydew Lane

Fire broke out on Honeydew Lane in the early afternoon of Saturday March 24th. According to Wildomar City Council member Bridgette Moore, One adult female and two adult males have been aided by the Red Cross.

Looking easterly, towards the corner of Vine and Honeydew.

The structure appeared to be a total loss. 
(photo and video below)

Standing about pin high to Honeydew Lane, looking up Vine. You can see the temporary water supply brought in by the fire department in this, and other shots below.

From the corner, looking south down Honeydew Lane.

About 100 yards north of the fire on Honeydew Lane.

Site of the fire where a home once stood.

Near the site of the fire, looking north up Honeydew Lane.

Another northerly view of Honeydew Lane.

A neighbor was quoted as saying, "It was too hot for me to stay on my deck, behind the wall. Once I saw it was gas fed from the water heater I gave up putting water on it and tried to cool my place."

Photo courtesy of neighbor.

Heat damage to the home next door. Photo courtesy of neighbor. 

As seen from the freeway.
Photo Courtesy Sally Latimer.

Below is a short video of the damage. No flames, just smoke and the fire department at work.

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• Wildfire in Hills Above Wildomar

UPDATE 2:20 P.M. 10/27/2017: 

ALL EVACUATION WARNINGS HAVE BEEN LIFTED ON THE WILDOMAR FIRE. EVACUATION ORDERS REMAIN IN PLACE.

UPDATE ROAD CLOSURES: 

Cleveland National Forest: road at the Tenaja Junction and Los Alamos near La Cuesta.

La Cresta Road Closures: Avenida La Cresta X Clinton Keith Rd., Calle Centro X Avenida La Cresta, Avenida Bonita X Avenida La Cresta, Calle De Campanero X Avenida La Cresta, Calle Bandido X Avenida La Cresta, Calle Bandido X Hombre Lane

UPDATE 10/27/17 @ 8:30 a.m.- Fire is 700 acres 15% containment. 200 residences have evacuated. No structures damaged at this time.

Former Wildomar Fire Chief Steve Beach, incident commander, at the map.

From the command center at The Diamond in Lake Elsinore, Friday 7:00am.
Photo courtesy of Bridgette Moore

From the command center at The Diamond in Lake Elsinore, Friday 7:00am.
Photo courtesy of Bridgette Moore

UPDATE 10/27/17 @ 12:54 a.m. - The gated community of Bear Creek is under an Evacuation WARNING. An Evacuation ORDER has been issued. The area involved is west of Grand Avenue, north of Avenida La Cresta, and south of Calle De Lobo in the La Cresta Community.  

ADDITIONAL STREETS IN THE LA CRESTA COMMUNITY INCLUDE: AVENIDA CASTILLA, VIA CABALLOS, CALLE DE SUENOS, SIERRA MARIA ROAD, VISTA FLORA ROAD, TEICH LANE, VALLE VISTA, VIA SEVILLA, PASEO DE FLORES AND PASEO CHAPARRO.

Looks like Ben Benoit was working this late into the night.

UPDATE 10/26/17 @ 8:22 p.m. - The fire remains at 350 acres and is 15% contained. This will be the last update of the night, unless any significant activity occurs. The next update will be tomorrow morning.

UPDATE 10/26/17 @ 6:50 p.m. - CAL FIRE/Riverside County Fire Department is in unified command with Cleveland National Forest.  CAL FIRE/Riverside County Fire Department is the official source for information for the Wildomar Fire. The fire is 350 acres and 0% contained. An EVACUATION ORDER  in place for five residences on Hixson Truck Trail above the warning area. An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued for the Lakeland Village Community area west of Grand Avenue and north of McVicar Street and south of Akley Street in the Cites of Lake Elsinore and Wildomar due to the Wildomar Fire. Avoid Grand Avenue due to traffic and emergency vehicles.

FOLLOW @CALFIRERRU ON TWITTER FOR UPDATES

If you're a user of hashtags and or Twitter, #WildomarFire is the one created for this issue.

Update as of 8:34pm

From Ben Benoit's Facebook page around 9:15pm

The command center for the fire is being moved to Storm Stadium. Dozens of fire trucks are out doing structure protection along the hill. Two night operation attack helicopters and multiple bulldozers will be working into the night. Big thanks to Chief Hawkins and all of our CalFire apparatus out there tonight.#WildomarFire

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Original Blog Post

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Around 1:00pm smoke was being noticed coming from the hills above Wildomar and the fire has since been dubbed, The Wildomar Fire.

This was an early shot of the fire. Taken just a little after 1pm From across the street from the Elks Lodge.

Take before 1:30pm from the dirt lot just north of IMM Auto Repair.

SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATED SHOTS
not all are in chronological order

From Cleveland National Forest Twitter Account. Click to follow.
This photo was time stamped at about 2:50pm.

Video of the smoke at 3:30pm from the corner near the fire station.

The same video sped up, interesting to see it in fast motion.

Link to Twitter account of Cleveland National Forrest 

As seen from across the street from Fire Station 51.

A shot from ABC's helicopter.

Live audio is at this link. Click the image.

Link to official audio, live feed.

DC10 dropping fire retardant, from the parking lot of Marna O'Brien park around 4:22pm.

Mayor Pro-Tem Ben Benoit and Councilmember Bridgette Moore using the facebook live feature to share with the people of Wildomar in real time.

As the DC10 takes a practice run.

Close up as the DC10 banks left.

A look at the smoke in real time with an additional video of the same scene sped up.
Below is a second video taken as the smoke billowed. It was sped up about 10 times.

Below is an image captured by Bridgette Moore while at Marna O'Brien park around 4:15pm.

Photo courtesy of Bridgette Moore.

The fire was very visible while driving north on the 15 freeway around 8pm. I went back over to Marna O'Brien park and the fire wasn't easy to see since the ball field lights were on. We drove over to McVicar and the fire was very easy to see from there... just not easy to get images of that were all that clear.

Even with a tripod, it wasn't easy to get a clean shot.

Below is a video of the fire at about 8pm.

Photo courtesy Ben Benoit.

Shared from Ben Benoit's facebook page.

Shared from Ben Benoit's facebook page.

As the fire looked from above Windsong Valley at 7:15am, Friday October 27th.

Resources Assigned:

    • Firefighters: 959

    • Helicopters: 5

    • Law Enforcement: Yes

    • Engine Companies: 118

    • Air Attack: Yes

    • EMD: Yes

    • Overhead Personnel: 35

    • Fire Investigator: Yes

    • American Red Cross: Yes

    • Public Information Officer: Yes

    • Displaced Persons: No

    • Specialized Equipment: Helitender

    • Utilities: No       

    • Air Tankers: 5      

    • Fire Crews: 43    

    • Water Tenders: 7

    • Bulldozers: 6

Cooperating Agencies:
    • CAL FIRE/Riverside
    • CAL FIRE/San Diego
    • Idyllwild Fire Protection District
    • March ARB
    • Morongo Fire Department
    • Murrieta Fire Protection District
    • Riverside City FD
    • Riverside County Fire Department
    • USFS 
    • USFS – Cleveland

• First Responders Descend on Hartford Park

As the sun was setting sirens were blaring in the quiet neighborhood of Hartford Park, which is on the east side of the 15 freeway.

Many neighbors were out watching, smartphones in hand, as the action unfolded. One of the first officials on the scene was Wildomar City Councilmember Bridgette Moore. 

As it happened, she had been enjoying some music outdoors at Teakwoods. After the 4th fire truck went by on Clinton Keith, then turning north on George Ave, not to mention two ambulances, she couldn't resist the call of duty another moment and went to the scene... which was about a quarter mile away.

Mayor Pro-Tem Ben Benoit and Bridgette Moore speak to Captain Griffith of station 75.

I asked Captain Griffith for a thumbnail sketch of the call, and how many units rolled out.

Initially three engines, truck 73, hazmat, county environmental health, and a battalion chief. It hasn't turned into a medical call, so there's no HIPAA [issues]. They felt a little dizzy and they wanted to make sure things were safe. So we came in [with] monitors, cleared the area to make sure things were safe.

Captain Jeff Griffith, Station 75

As quickly as they arrived, they made sure things were all well, and left. 

I appreciate the abundance of caution, but wonder how much a call like this will ding the city's budget for such things. 

•          •          •

Smiling is definitely one of the best beauty remedies. If you have a good sense of humor and a good approach to life, that's beautiful.
– Rashida Jones

Wildomar Rap is a beautiful blog as its humor forces you to smile... sometimes against your will.

• City Council Meeting April 2015

Let's go down the agenda of this quick meeting, it finished by about 8:00pm.

Presentations

• Park Enhancement Project (PEP)- Regency Heritage Park

Seniors and other student volunteers spent four Saturdays in a row, for a total of 185 hours on this project. They raised over $500 and received over 85 donated plants. The students planted 185 new plants, transplanted 150 plants, and removed 1800sf of weeds.

A picture of the PEP volunteers along with some of the sponsors.

• Donate Life California
This was in reference to the pink dot on the driver's license organ donation program. There will be an event on Sunday April 25th, at Cal State Fullerton called 13th Annual Run Walk.

•Neighborhood Watch
There is a neighborhood watch meeting at the council chambers April 14th. Spread the word, the past meetings had been in Lake Elsinore, so show some community support by attending.

•Fire Department Update
During the first quarter of the year there were 777 emergency calls, which projects to be over 3000 for the year. 75% of those were medical in nature. Be proactive, make sure to abate all weeds, especially if you live in a high fire part of the city.

Public Comments (items not on the agenda)

•Kenny Mayes speaking about street sweeping, park security camera rules.
•Johnny Patty spoke about the day laborers that set up camp on Palomar south of Clinton Keith. That he'd like something done about their illegal parking that is a traffic hazard.
•George Cambero, one of our EVMWD directors, wanted to tell the public that if you have concerns, phone calls are the preferred method of getting hold of him over FaceBook messages. His number is (951) 285-9789 and he'll take your calls on anything water related... except billing.

3.1 Measure Z New Appointees
This item was pushed to the next meeting on May 13, 2015.

3.2 Parks Master Plan
It started off with Bob Cashman having to exclude himself from this item since his home is too close to one of the parks.

The audience enjoyed the way he phrased it:
"I'm going to have to excuse myself from this because of a ruling... concerning my property and its proximity to one of the parks. Now why that prohibits me from doing the whole Parks Plan I don't know but that's what they ruled. Since they ruled that way in writing, I'm going to pay attention to it." The crowd was amused. ☺

This was the final vote on the Parks Master Plan.
Here is a link to one of the blogs about the Parks Master Plan workshop from last year.

It's a very ambitious plan. To properly study this plan it would be worth a 5 unit class.

Assistant City Manager Dan York has been doing a great job putting this together, and after tonight's 4-0-1 vote, he'll now start to chase after the money to start funding it.

On the right you see the parks we have today. On the left you see the additional proposed parks over 30 years.

Want the basic numbers?

Are you sitting down?

At today's costs, to fully implement the Parks Master Plan would be about $74,000,000. My basic math skills tell me that 74 million divided by 33 thousand residents, is only $2242.42 per person.

Just tell me where you want me to send the check.

Dan York stated that there are a whole lot of strategies to get funding and financing; local, federal, state and private.

There were two Public Comments of this topic.
•Kenny Mayes discussing the lack of public interest in the whole process.
•John Lloyd said how he was very, very impressed with the plan. "I don't think the price is something you're going to enjoy dealing with, but it's not something that's going to go away either. You'll have to get really, really creative, but if we can pull it off, that's an excellent park plan."

Council comments on the Parks Master Plan.

• Bridgette Moore "This document is so exciting. I can't believe this is something we can actually have one day. What it will mean to Wildomar, our community our house values."

• Marsha Swanson "This document is a dream come true. We may not be able to afford it today... and maybe it is a big dream and you know they say, Build it and they will come. This plan is absolutely great. I want to thank staff for the time and the energy, thinking outside of the box, different ways to put this together. You hear this amount of money and you go, Where are we going to get that, that's more than our budget for the whole city? but we thought of ways, and I think that's super."

• Tim Walker "It's very detailed. This is a good guideline of things we can do in the future. Now we just need to get the funding. Need to still keep our commercial coming in and help pay for a lot of things we want to do here. It's quality of life, quality of life, and quality of life. That's all it is in Wildomar, it's all about that. Good job guys [city staff] it was awesome."

• Ben Benoit "Ditto. Dan, great job. You and the team put a lot of work into this."

I'd love to see such developments for Wildomar, but I'm a "show me the money" kind of guy. If you build it, then I'll believe it. Especially in this town. Let's hope Dan York can work some of his magic here.

City Managers Report
•Rotary BBQ this Saturday, April 11th from 10am to 4pm. $5 entry fee.
•May 9th, city wide clean up at Ronald Reagan School and Elsinore High School.
•Budget workshop April 16th. 6:30pm at the council chambers.
•Water Conservation meeting with EVWMD
•SB 25, sponsored by State Senator Roth to have our VLF returned. It's making good process, unanimous approval in committee. This time they are trying to get this put into the actual budget as a "control item" which would be veto proof.

Future Agenda Items
Tim Walker would like to streamline the process for people looking to build large garages on their own properties. Today, if the building is over 20'x20' you have to go through several hoops that will add at least $4,000 to your garage. The rest of the council looked to be in agreement that it should be a future agenda item.

One final park note. 

Looks like the new basketball nets have a mind of their own over at Windsong park. Though these hoops are set up for the cloth nets, looks like they tried to escape. The nets aren't torn, just no longer secured by those metal coils. I was told that the nets couldn't be zip tied to the rims because there may be sharp edges and someone could cut themselves which is a liability. Since zip ties are dangerous, how about some good old black tape instead? We've gotta do something to keep them varmints from skedaddling. ☺

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Update

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Good news, it was fixed within a week of this blog being posted.

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The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those with too little. 

— Franklin D. Roosevelt 

Wildomar Rap never attempts to halt the incoming tide, and isn't a fan of battling with windmills either.