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Hardester's Fire, Cal-Fire responds and Charlie sums it up


On May 29, 2018, Hardester’s Market & Hardware, the multi-generational center of Middleton’s universe, burned to the ground.

I should know.  I was driving to Chico that day and must have driven past it at exactly the moment the fire, which fire-fighters reported, started in the back of the store.  There was no indication of the soon-to-be inferno, as I passed through.

As I reached the northern limits of this small town, I was about to pull into my friend Palani’s Chevron and Market to get a coffee and I noticed two fire trucks responding to a call.  From Middleton, up through Hidden Valley. and then into the Clearlake area, it was nothing but south-bound fire trucks, in full emergency response.  I lost count at about 10, thinking to myself that something serious was going on behind me.

Up through Lower Lake, more fire trucks were racing south.  Cal-Fire was not taking any chances and this appeared to be an all-hands response.

Just out of Clearlake, I turned right on Highway 20 and proceeded towards Williams and Interstate 5.  There were still more fire trucks racing south.  Some of these were those huge four-wheel drive models used to fight canyon fires.

Beyond the road to Cache Creek, highway 20 gets straighter and wider with adequate passing lanes.  There still are several spots where the road narrows to two lanes.  It was at a narrow spot like this, over the crest of a hill, that I was following an RV and was closing so I could safely pass when the road would widen again.  At this particular hilltop crest, there wasn’t the normal wide shoulder but a large curb that had been built to channel water flow into the drainage area.

I suddenly noticed the RV start to react to something and it caused me to tense and prepare to react also.  Looking up, I see coming at me in the opposite direction, at the very crest of the hill, a large tandem tanker tractor trailer  being passed by another of those large, four wheel drive Cal-Fire trucks, with lights and siren in full song and headed straight at me in my lane.  I’ve a curb to my right that prevents me from doing a full escape maneuver but I do manage to slide enough to the right where the two oncoming trucks and I had barely enough room to escape and survive.  I am certain that it was less than inches separating life and death.  I was thankful that the other two drivers also reacted and we all maneuvered so we could squeeze three across in a two across road with no safety shoulders.  The warning of that RV in front of me had alarmed me to prepare to act quickly to whatever was coming.

Still, I was shaken and shocked by how quickly this danger had come and gone.  I pulled over as soon as I could just to recover and re-compose myself.

As I was parked in the shade, all I could think about was the story of a truck driver taking the verbal examination for his commercial driver’s license.  His instructor asks, “You are driving a double rig and it’s nighttime.  Your partner, Charlie, is asleep in the back.  You’re mid-span over a very narrow two lane bridge and you look up, only to see two large tractor trailers approaching you at full speed, one passing the other and taking up the entire bridge.  What would you do?”

The driver thinks for a moment and answers, “I would wake Charlie up.”

The instructor is confused and replies, “Why would you do that?”

“Cause Charlie ain’t never seen a wreck this bad.”

Yeah, kinda my sentiments, too.

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 12, 2018 at 4:44 PM

    LOL

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 12, 2018 at 7:26 PM

    Recover and re-compose? Is that a nicer way of saying, 'change your shorts?'

    ReplyDelete

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