sounds as if it was extinguished rather quickly...where was she when she saw the smoke?
I just checked again for the other fire. The article was from the Santa Cruz Sentinel Aug. 13, 1961 and titled “Everyone Pitches In To Help Scotts Valley Fire Department”. That title does not necessarily mean it had something to do with a fire so I am thinking Susan was wrong about her dates.
I was born and raised in CA. Wildfires are a fact of life in the mountains there. My mother still owns a pair of small lots in the Monte Toyon area east of Aptos (Santa Cruz Mountains) and my father never wanted to build on them because of the fire danger. Now the County will not allow them to be built on. I keep telling her that she should donate that land to the church camp across the road (she’s 96) because they will never be approved for building, and they are worthless. But, she keeps paying taxes on them. **roll eyes** I guess I’ll have to solve that problem some day sooner than later.
In any case, there is no water and scrubby forest. I think there is even areas of Eucalyptus. It’s tinder dry and burns ever summer.
My point is that there are so mamny fires there — in all of the CA mountains — that they hardly make the news unless they burn something really expensive. In the 1960s there was hardly anything built in those mountains. Church camps, a few cabins, etc.