We were on our way to dinner, planning to eat at Buck's Restaurant in Woodside when we found ourselves in the middle of this traffic jam.

When we finally arrived at Buck's it was closed. Someone was just locking up the front door. There was a sign on the door saying: "Closed. Power Outage"

As witnesses to this event, there are several inaccuracies which need to be clarified.

A tree did not fall on a car. We watched as a tree fell in front of a car. The car stopped in time and was not hit by the tree. An electrical line, however, did land on the car, and everyone got out safely.

When the electrical line came down, several fires started almost simultaneously. There were at least four fires started within fifteen seconds. On the Eastern side, those fires were within feet of property fences in the grass and shrub areas. The situation was very dangerous and properties were absolutely at risk.

We called 911 within thirty seconds of the tree falling. The dispatcher was told repeatedly that a car had not hit anything; that a tree had fallen on the road and that electrical wires were rapidly starting fires which were now burning very close to properties, as well as between Canada Road and the 280 freeway.

Civilians acted to protect their property with water hoses and shovels, which is why the fire did not cause more damage on the east side of Canada Rd. The civilians were able to contain the fires before the fire department showed up.

There is another piece missing from your story and it concerns us greatly; the response time from the fire department was somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes after we called for help. How is this adequate to protect our town?

If this is considered "normal and acceptable" then we have lost all faith in the Woodside Fire department.

We will attend the next town hall meeting to bring up this issue with the governing council. In a town with a very high danger for fire, we believe a better plan needs to be in place to ensure our safety.

Thank you Denise and Millo. It would be great if the fire dept could confirm response times and SLAs.

David Boyce, can you pls investigate?

Denise and Millo Fenzi:

Thank you for posting the accurate facts.

And...re: (from Almanac story)..."The vehicle was towed from the scene, but the damage seemed limited to scratches and the vehicle appeared drivable, he said."

It seems very unlikely that if a tree had fallen on a car it would be drivable and have just a few scratches. That's for sure.

Anyway, thanks for setting the record straight.