There is another wildfire burning in Bonny Doon, near the Heinleins' last permanent home. This is the second in two years in the area. I haven't yet run down the exact location from the roads mentioned as bracketing it, but it's over 2000 acres and still out of control.

Pointers to further update as I find them. News-Google "Lockheed Fire" to track things.

Addendum: It is difficult to track the reported location and progress by the roads mentioned, but the fire appears to be considerably north of the Heinlein house and the town of Bonny Doon. It is, however, being pushed that way by winds and still 0% contained.

Addendum 2: it looks as if the fire is about 6 miles north of the house and town. For reference, Heinlein's house is at 37° 3'31.81"N, 122° 9'29.37"W.

This is bad. The current fire map shows the advancing edge headed right into the area of the Heinlein house. All roads around the house have been "hard closed."

Here's the map being updated as news comes in:

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_13053529

The Heinlein house is basically due west of the 90-degree turn in Ice Cream Grade, just on the other side of Pine Flat road, nearer Bonny Doon Road. Directly in the path of the fire.

I believe Heinlein's plan was to build a fireproof house for Ginny. We'll see if he succeeded.

Fire perimeter is about a half mile from the house and advancing steadily with the winds.

Here's a better map. Zoom in to the bottom of the roads marked in red; in Satellite mode you can find the house (a white circle, very prominent) by following the the horizontal line of the Ice Cream Grade road across to where it would intersect Bonny Doon Road.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8& ... urce=embed

This looks even more bad.

Sigh. I've been saying for years that the signs at the borders of the Golden State should be altered to say: "Welcome to California, state of emergency".

This fire is named the Lockheed fire because it started near the Lockheed Martin facility, right? That's over five miles from Bonny Doon. Good grief.

Joe and I were just there in mid-July. :/ This forested area, like those in much else of the Golden State, has been poorly managed and there is an incredible amount of underbrush grown up. So any fire gets lots of fuel and prime conditions this time of year.

Pity.

It has nothing to do with poor management - at least not in the sense you mean it.

You cannot "manage" hundreds of thousands of wild-growth acres. There is no practical way at all to keep the coastal forests "managed" like some kind of park. These areas have ecosystems that are made up of dense, brushy growth that has burned every few decades for thousands of years - and WILL burn every few decades regardless of whether the odd human structure has been built there or not. (Fa criminy's sakes, the good nature-bonding Ohlone tribe used to SET fires there because they understood that a good burnout was part of the necessary cycle of growth!)

It's not the fault of the federal or state land management bureaus for somehow not properly doing things. There is NOTHING that can be done with such terrain and growth except to let it burn from time to time. In fact, the major growth is DEPENDENT on regular burns for normal development and regrowth cycles. Once settlement begins in an area, you can't even do control burns with any regularity because the ability to control them is very limited.

I get really tired of hearing about the poor people with their poor multimillion dollar homes built on the Malibu cliffs... which have been crumbling for millennia. Ditto for the poor, poor souls whose homes are in canyons and arroyos that erode from flash floods and burn like tinder every half-dozen years or so.

The northern coast is a little less prone to mudslides and forest fires, but not much. I don't have any great sympathy for those who built in an unstable place - and then built out of "earth friendly" funky nature-loving materials like cedar shakes - AND THEN let the forest and undergrowth crowd up chummy to their lil' nature hideaway! The ONLY way to build and live in this area is to use fireproof materials, careful design, and maintain substantial clearances from the forest growth. The smart residents there know that. I want to go strangle some of these older folks and their lost cats in their funky treehouses hidden in the woods.

It is not - repeat, not - California or any other government's fault if these people, in Malibu, the LA canyons or manzanita country anywhere, are grievously in harm's way. Except by letting them build there in the first place.

And I bet every one of them would resent to the moon - no, unto voting Republican - if we tried to bill them for a pro-rata share of moving half the state's firefighting equipment in to protect them from their own misjudgement.

I see from a late update that the House is now in the mandatory evacuation area.

The house is just under a mile southeast of the fire. It's extremely difficult to tell, but the southeastern perimeter seems stable, while the spread is to the west and north.

The house is also cinder block and concrete and, as you can see, has pretty good clearances from the forest. All that may yet add up to "luck."

For anyone who hasn't seen these yet.

http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/hist ... doon1.html

I was in California recently and driving down the Pacific Coast Highway towards Monterey on August 18th. I was not seeking out Bonny Doon but when I saw the road sign for it (it was a "Hey!! Look at that!" moment) I made the left turn and followed the very long road up and around and took a drive past 6000.

I can report that there was no evidence of any fire at that time along Bonny Doon Rd. The forest is clear cut back from the house although I do think that it may now be heavily gardened (it was a really quick view as I did not get out of the car or even stop - I don't know how often people come and gawk up the driveway anymore but I could see it being an aggravation to the current owners so I resisted).

I also did not take any pictures of house in spite of being an avid photographer.

However, I did take this scenic shot of Shark's Tooth which was nearby.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23469386@N04//3903253467/