The video above has been picked up everywhere, I think, as a first-person view of the Valley Fire as it roared through southern Lake County on Saturday evening. It was recorded by a resident of the Anderson Springs community northwest of Middletown, and all I can tell you about timing is that it’s after dark — so sometime after 7:45 p.m. or so. At about the 50-second mark in the video, the driver goes through a gate and you can make out the words “Anderson Springs” (in reverse). Not being sufficiently employed in more productive activities (I’m taking the week off from work, where I often do the same thing I’m doing right here), I checked to see if I could find Anderson Springs Road, and the gate, on Google Street View.
The image below is a screen shot of the gate and environs in happier times — June 2012, to be more exact (the gate had been erected sometime between a 2007 Street View sweep and the 2012 image).
One thing that’s clear looking at the entire video — it’s just under two minutes, total — is that most of the many homes along the road burned. The video shows one property after another in flames, and upon reaching the corner of Highway 175, just past the gate, a voice says, “Holy fucking shit” upon seeing a large home (visible in the Street View) images that’s being consumed by fire. Here’s the Street View link to the scene below
