Well, here's the story. I was in the netted inflatable field arena for finals when another photog on the field pointed out some smoke rising from behind our eucalyptus grove that encircles the entire 24 acres of paintball area. I thought it was nothing, possibly a dust devil or some such. I was wrong. The plume grew darker and darker. I immediately ran down our incredibly long driveway to get a look-see at what was the cause. Halfway down the 300 ft lane, I could feel it. Heat. Hot heat. Bad heat. Then I saw, through the trees, flames. I freaked but the field owner (and fellow photog) was already there and radioing it in to the office to have them call the sheriff and 911. At first, it was fairly small. It looked like a small strip of fire and nothing incredible, but it quickly, and violently, grew. Immediately, we stopped the finals games and started evacuations, urging people to lave everything and leave NOW. People did so and we took to directing traffic to safely move everyone away from the fire that could, at any time, blow embers into the dry tinderbox that was our Eucalyptus grove and easily trap hundreds of players and parents. Once we got just about everyone evacuated and onto the main road, safely away from the fire, the wind took a bad turn and blew smoke all into the road. The Cal Fire response was incredibly fast. 2 fire control planes arrived in mere minutes of notification while the fire chief and ambulance got there shortly thereafter. Lucky the park is only a couple miles from the fire department

When the fire department arrived, we knew that we had to be prepared, so we obtained several shovels with which to put out any wayward embers that made their way over to the park. None did, however, so we put them to use against the smoldering fires while the fire department concentrated on saving several cars and a home. Got some great shots, unfortunately I missed the 2 airplane drops but I got the helicopter one!

Gallery:

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