Tuesday May 13th 2014.

I was at my office when I got a phone call from my wife, Christy. She was visiting my parents with our two-year-old daughter, and there was a fire about a quarter mile away. Minutes later, she said that the fire was rapidly approaching, and there was smoke outside. I told her to drop everything and evacuate immediately.

I had heard that many people saved their homes by soaking the roof with a garden hose, but there was no time for that, and the smoke outside was too thick. Even if not for the smoke, manually holding the hose would not have been enough to protect the entire building. Minutes later, a mandatory evacuation was ordered. My wife and parents put my daughter in the car, grabbed what they could, and drove away.

The fire burned to the east, north, west, and south of my parents' home. We assumed they would lose everything and could only watch the news from across town. Hours later, I evacuated my own home as well. It was up to the direction and strength of the wind to determine what would burn and what would survive. A single hot ember lifted from the fire could have easily landed on my parents' roof and started a fire in the middle of their community. There was nothing we could do but cheer and pray for the firefighters.

"Never again," I promised myself. Never again would I be so unprepared for a fire near my home in Carlsbad.

This was not the first close call. In 2007, we evacuated because of the Witch Fire. This time it was different. This time, it was just luck that more people didn’t lose their lives.

I immediately began researching rooftop sprinkler systems and read a case study about the effectiveness of wetting the roof as soon as a fire is nearby. As you would expect, a wet roof is much less likely to catch fire. I also learned that it can reduce the temperature in the attic because the evaporating water carries away heat.

I wanted a sprinkler that was mostly metal so it wouldn’t crack in the hot sun. I wanted it to be heavy so it wouldn’t blow away in strong winds. I wanted it to match the color of my roof so my HOA would approve it. I contacted Randy, and we started working on making sprinklers.

With the sprinklers installed, I will at least not feel helpless and can do more than just cross my fingers the next time there is a fire in San Diego. I have little doubt that there will be more fires in San Diego, as the world seems to become drier and hotter every year.