 My name is Brad Alexander with the California Emergency Management Agency and we're in Manton, California where the Ponderosa fire has burned more than 19,000 acres and almost 2,000 firefighters that have responded. We've been speaking with folks here at the Manton General Store at the one intersection in this town and these folks have said that it's been very difficult dealing with the conditions of this fire but they're glad that firefighters are here to help them. You drive up the road three and a half miles from here and you're in a completely devastated area. It's just, it's worse than I could have imagined. The hardest thing for me is my friends that have lost their homes. So I hanked Richard on TV last night. I mean, he lost the house he was born in. I mean, that's a terrible thing. It's just horrible, just horrible. I moved up. I moved up in a fire that was in 05. It missed me by a mile this side and this fire missed us by a half a mile the other side. Incredible. I mean, I mean close to 2,000 firefighters up here. What could we have? And you know, it's amazing to even take on a monster like this fire. I mean, look, look how fast it moved. But still, it's not being able to leave and come home, knowing that if you leave your house, you can't get back. Even though you're kind of outside the fire area, you're still at the whim of roadblocks and not knowing what's going on if you leave and you've got animals. Most of the people here have animals and it sounds easy to evacuate, but when you've got dogs and cats and chickens and horses and everything, you can't really just up and run to someone's house and say, can I spend the night? It doesn't work that way. You have a lot of things to contend with and it's been a little nerve-wracking. For more information on the California fire season, visit www.calema.ca.gov or talk to us on Twitter at CalEMA. Subscribe to our blog at calemanews.wordpress.com.