Chips fire and my unexpected really strange day.

Wow. I crested the hill down to belden yesterday early around six am.  Saw a bunch of strange looking mist.  Eventually determined there was smoke in it.  As i kept descending i saw more and more smoke and at around six thirty started to hear tons of chainsaw noise.   At this point I freaked out a little and turned on my phone (pic below). Shian was able to let me in on the details, yes the fire was on he pct and it was closed north of belden.  I got to belden, had breakfast, picked up my package and met up with a bunch of other hikers at the belden town resort.  The usfs guys kept coming by to update us on the status but it did not look good.  The trail had been closed already for a couple days, but contain on the fire was up to twenty percent by noon.  At this point i was actually planning on spending the night in belden and walking a twenty five mile alternate route on dirt state highways in the early early morning to get back onto the trail.  Fortunately for me a nice retired Canadian couple that I had spent some time with (roboknee and sea hag) met a local who was going to drive them to a bus stop (twenty miles away), and given that there was an extra spot in the car I took it.  From there we took a bus into Chester, which is a resupply spot/city about eight miles off the pct (~35 miles of trail north of belden). 
Turns out that the fire doubled in size and lost contain (to ten percent) by nightfall, and the alternate route I was planning in taking got shutdown as well.  Meanwhile i was eating at tasty diners and sleeping in a motelroom.  Shian hooked me up with a trail angel that is taking me back to the trail at nine am.  Sometimes you're just lucky and it definitely pays to make friends. 
.  http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_21199499/chips-fire-feather-river-canyon-determined-be-human?refresh=no
http://www.plumasnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9795:chips-fire-doubles-in-size-campers-evacuated&catid=69:-headline-news&Itemid=6