Last Monday, Casitas Rowing coaches Wendy and Eric Gillett were relaxing after a fun weekend of racing at the Long Beach Christmas Regatta, with the club's racing fleet stored safely on a trailer outside their home in Ventura, California.

The plan was get to sleep, and then drive the equipment Tuesday morning to nearby Lake Casitas and the club's rowing facility. But by 11:30 Monday evening, police were moving through the neighborhood calling for residents to leave their homes.

A small brush fire believed to have started 35 miles away was being driven toward their community at what Wendy Gillett said was a reported rate of one-mile every 20 seconds by Santa Ana winds, threatening their homes as well as the nearby Casitas Rowing facilities.

As of Tuesday morning, according to Gillett, several members of the Casitas Rowing community have lost their homes, and 23 families from a Ventura City middle school that has children enrolled in the Casitas middle school program have also lost homes. The boats, luckily, were driven to safety during the evacuation and are safe.

But while it appears that the fires are no longer an imminent threat to the Gillett's neighborhood, Lake Casitas remained mostly cut off, the fires surrounding the lake continue in spurts, and ash is piling up on the equipment stored outside the fenced in boat yard.

See the following news video of the fire around Lake Casitas.

There was hope that the worst of the danger has passed, but any change in wind direction could mean further disaster. In other words, "we're not out of the woods yet," Wendy Gillett said, adding that she hopes the larger US rowing communities would "keep us in their thoughts.

"It's been a crazy week, that is for sure," she said. "It's been one week, but it feels like a year. And it is not over yet."

The fires - a half dozen of them - have been capturing national headlines and have destroyed nearly 200,000 acres of Southern California and 792 structures in its path.

And the Casitas rowing community and Lake Casitas, the rowing venue for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, has been in and out of the path of the largest one, the Thomas Fire, in Ventura County. According to news reports Monday, only 15 percent of the Thomas Fire was contained.

"It's a minute to minute situation," Gillett said. "I know that sounds dramatic, but it is. Because of the winds, I get an email or something on Facebook that says the fire is going away, and then we would get another update that it was coming right towards us."

Gillett said that they have been evacuated and allowed to return home three times, and are now home and believe the fires are moving away from their home in the city of Ventura.

That could change, but the damage to the rowing facility on the lake remains, and the roads are intermittently opened and closed. Yesterday, Eric Gillett, who is the club's executive director, attempted to reach the club but was turned back before getting there.

"Right now, the biggest worry is the boat club," Wendy Gillett said. "The club is north of our home, and the fire is heading toward Santa Barbara (to the northwest). Our house is south of the lake and the fire has moved north. They can't get a handle on it."

row2k asked what the rowing community can do at this time.

"What I would say to the rowing community is just send good thoughts," she said. "We want to protect the club as much as possible. We also want to protect the double that was rowed by Brad Lewis and Paul Enquist when they won the gold medal. It came up for sale a few years ago we bought it.

"That is one of our biggest concerns; we don't want that to get damaged because it is such an iconic boat."

We are pulling for everyone in the area and will keep the rowing community posted as new information is available.

Smoke over Lake Casitas Tuesday, Dec. 11, in the spot where Brad Lewis is said to have hauled a double over the fence. Photos by Eric Gillett.