Are any tourist railroads in danger from these fires? ex Niles Canyon, Roaring Camp, Sierra, California Western, Yreka Western and others? I live in New Jersey so I have no idea where the fire is in relation to any of these places.

None of the ones you mentioned are anywhere near any of the Southern California Fires. In fact, I'd tend to classify all of the above lines as Northern California. But this is California. Like the weather, if you don't see what you like today, wait until tomorrow. The arsonists just haven't made it that far North yet.

Though I haven't heard of any of the ones down here as being threatened yet, ones that are near fires are Filmore and Western and the San Diego Railroad Museum in Campo. Other's that could easily be threatened by Southern California wildfires would be the Orange Empire Museum in Perris, and the Travel Town Museum in Griffith Park.

There are some other operations in the SD area that's I've never visitied (Vista?) so others help me here.

Greg

Never been there, but had a brief online contact a number of years ago related to an eBay purchase with a volunteer here

http://www.powaymidlandrr.org/default.htm

One of the television reports indicated one of the first fires was at this community.

sc 'doc' lewis

California is a big state.

When you compare it with the East Coast it would extend from roughly the northern boundary of Connecticut to the bottom tip of South Carolina. Some of our southern Counties have as much land area as whole eastern States.


Map from the website of the California State Association of Counties.

As far as I know - no railway museums are in peril. The Pacific Southwest Railway Museum will remain safe - they are basically fire protected with fireproof roofs, weed removal, etc. The San Diego & Arizona Railway could lose some ties and maybe a wood threstle - hopefully not. If the railway takes a hit, operations by PSRM out of Campo could be impacted.

But, Jim,

Some of our members, volunteers and supporters could very well be affected by the fires. And that might have an effect on their ability to participate by donating time or money as they rebuild, etc.

This is perilously close to being off-topic, but I find it useful to remember
that the area of California is about 100 million acres. This provides a nice
mental "scale" to put news reports of large acreages in perspective.

I am scheduled to run a train on Sunday. I received an email today saying that PSRM will be running trains this weekend so Ill be there on Sunday.
engrbob

If calfires.com is to be believed, the Poway-Midland escaped the burn area by about one mile.

I'm scheduled to run at PSRM on Saturday (and be Eng'r Bob's Conductor on Sunday). The latest word that I have is that, yes, we will be running this weekend. BUT... the Harris Fire started about 7 miles west of our facility. It burned west for about 30 miles in the first couple of days. Now, the wind has done a 180. The fire is about 7 miles west of us again, but is burning toward the northeast. Depending on what happens tomorrow, Campo could be on a "evacuation alert," or actually be evacuated. CalFire said that their biggest concentration of air support will be that area tomorrow, so things don't look too bad at this point. Also, if the fire continued northeast, it would miss the Museum, but the main access road to it, Buckman Springs Road could be closed. So, it as possible we might not run this weekend. And, if we are open, I'm not sure if many people will want to venture out that way.

As was mentioned above, the Museum itself is in a fairly clear area; no big accumulations of heavy brush. Some areas where we run do have some heavy brush that could impact the track if fire came through there.

Jim Baker

[redacted]

PSRM in Campo managed to stay well clear of the fires. The Harris fire started about 7 miles west of us, then went west. After the wind shifted, it went northeast. When I arrived in Campo at about 1:00 Friday afternoon, I could see a major column of smoke to the west. By 4:00 it was gone.

However, because of the fires, one of the roads leading to Campo was closed; and because of the smoke in town, lots of people stayed home that weekend. Our ridership this past weekend was about 20% of what it had been the weekend before (just before the fires started.) Weather in Campo was perfect, about 85 degrees, clear, no wind, no smoke.

Jim Baker, PSRM, Campo, CA

Have you heard if any of your members were seriously impacted? Hopefully none of them lost a home or worse.

Thanks for your concern. So far, I haven't heard of any of our members losing thier home. Several were evacuated from their homes for various lengths of time. I was a couple of blocks from one evacuated area, and was ready to go.

The biggest impact was on one of our volunteers who lives in Potrero, near where the Harris Fire started. His home is ok, but he was evacuated for several days. The electric power has still not been restored, so he has no refrigeration, lights, or power to run his well pump, so no water.

He, and one of our live-on-site "workamper" volunteers who has a lot of Red Cross disaster training and experience set up and ran the Campo evacuation center for several days. They had up to about 130 people staying there. They are both pretty beat.

Any LA area museum members get hit with any of the fires up ther?

I haven't heard that any of our volunteers at Travel Town have been affected. And nothing has made it through the grapevine to me about LALS or the folks down in Fullerton or OERM.

Greg