About July 6, 2008

Hello! I hope everyone in the Big Sur community is staying safe and being vigilant. Thank you to everyone in the greater community for your interest and support.

My name is Tara Wings and I live in Palo Colorado Canyon.

I have been writing summaries of the nightly Mid-Coast Fire meetings at our fire house in Palo Colorado and sending them to our neighborhood e-mail list. I thought that this information may be helpful for those in the greater community.

I do not have any special knowledge of fire activity or plans. I do not have any extra contacts with Unified Command. I merely take detailed notes during our meetings and attempt to rearticulate the information in an approachable and understandable way.

Please understand that I am new to this area and do not actually know first hand where many of the specific locations are that I am writing about, let alone how to spell them. I very well may get things wrong, but I always err on the side of leaving something out rather than putting up mis-information. Please write to me if you find an error. The entire point of this is to put out accurate information, and I would love your help in doing so.

The only reason that I am able to share this information with you is because of the wonderful, local Mid Coast Fire Brigade who has kept all operations and plans so transparent with us. They are part of our community and are fighting for us. They live here and are the reason that we in Palo Colorado have been allowed to stay for this long. We are trusting them with our homes, land, and lives, and I would not to put that trust in anyone other than the brave locals that make up the Mid Coast Brigade.

Amid horrible reports of tensions (to put it lightly) between fire and law enforcement officials and locals, I feel so lucky to have a local fire fighting brigade defending not just my home against fire, but also my rights. The Mid Coast Brigade have fought for us to be able to stay in Palo Colorado as long as we have. They are doing an amazing job with the fire and with managing the needs of locals. While there are many things to be upset about during this horrifically trying time, we should only be thankful for the local women and men who make up the Mid Coast Fire Brigade. I only wish that everyone in Big Sur could have local fire officials defending them as well.

One more word on these summaries. I have originally written them for the residents of Palo Colorado Canyon and that is still their primary purpose.

To ensure accuracy and privacy, I send the summary to residents of the Canyon at night when I am finished via our neighborhood e-mail list and give them until 10am the next morning to correct any mistakes I have made or let me know anything that I should take out of the blog because of privacy concerns. So, you can expect to see the summaries posted here and on surfire2008.wordpress.org the day after meetings around 10:30 am.

Throughout the post you will find references to phone numbers that are included at the bottom of the e-mail that I send to our neighborhood. These numbers will be deleted from the general post.

I hope this helps. Please consider donating to the Big Sur Fire Fund, by sending a check to CPOA, PO Box 59, Big Sur, CA 93920 (note “fire relief” on checks). Contributions may also be wired to the CPOA Big Sur Fire Relief Fund. To wire funds, contact Pam Peck 831 624-5418.

There are many of us who are out of work, out of home, and out of luck. For everyone in Big Sur and the Canyon, my heart is with all of you!