Fire Blazing On Travis Air Force Base

Buy an ad on DigitalJournal.com

100 unoccupied homes so far have been destroyed in what started out as a grass fire on Travis Air Force Base, and many more are threatened.

The blaze started around 3pm as a grass fire outside of the base area. However, winds gusting over 20 mph carried the flames over the base perimeter and caught fire to over 100 unoccupied homes. The houses were on tap to be destroyed as part of base renovation.

So far over 130 fire men and several crews have responded to the 7-alarm fire, which could be seen as far as 10 miles away. As of 8:15pm Pacific Standard Time the blaze is still burning and threatening several other structures such as the base chapel. Base residents in the occupied homes live a few hundred yards from the main fire but are relatively safe. Earlier they were ordered to shelter in place by locking all windows and doors to prevent smoke inhalation.


OK, that's the news version of this story. I have input because a) I used to live half a block from where this fire is burning b) I now live 2 miles from it and c) I tried to get on base earlier when it was going. We saw the fire from way far out and the smoke was pretty thick. By the time we got to the base you could see flames shooting up in the sky and choppers flying around.

Not only is the base chapel threatened, the base youth center, a child day care center AND an elementary school are very close to the fire. If anything there is going to be some serious smoke damage to those buildings and could possibly put them out of service for a while. My kids go to that youth center every weekday, so it may be "take your sons and daughters to work day" for me and mommy!

Thankfully the smoke is moving away from the base, but the wind is really, really bad here right now. I don't anticipate this fire ending until the wind dies. We drove around the block and can see the fire still burning some of the unoccupied homes.

Those homes have actually been sitting there unoccupied for at least 3 years. There were more than that unoccupied but all of them have been knocked down. The thing is that the ones on fire had been sitting there, fenced off and covered in at least 1 foot of dry grass AFTER being mowed occasionally. The ones that had already been replaced were closer to existing occupied homes and newer than the ones on fire.

It was part of the government's plan back in the early 2000's to assess cost of maintenance in old homes vs.paying for people to move off base. So Travis, like every other military installation, had to scale down the homes. Hundreds, HUNDREDS of homes on base have been unoccupied for awhile, leaving risk for fires, vandalism and the such. We've all been wondering "why are those homes STILL THERE?" Well, we aren't wondering anymore.