September 12, 2014
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FIRE ! Edit at bottom
Southern California is currently in the first day of at least four predicted to have temperatures approaching 100 degrees in the downtown LA area. That means the valleys will be in the area of 105-110 degrees for the next few days. This heat is accompanied, but fortunately wind is not included in the forecast. This morning around 11 am, a fire was reported -- it began in the back yard of somebody's home, but they have not yet determined how it was started. By the time I was aware of it, around 2 pm, it had burned 1200 acres! As I left a meeting, this is what I saw.
And when I got to a location where I could see the base of the fire (actually it is burning on the other side of that hill), this is what I saw.
From a vantage point a little higher, but a little farther away, the fire already looked huge -- it had been burning about 4 hours by this point.
Through a lens or a windshield that needs cleaning, this shot was taken about 1/s hour later.
And as I was editing the above shots, I saw this view from my desk!
The fire is fuel-driven rather than wind driven. There is a lot of dry grass, and the hills in the area are undeveloped for some distance from the location of the fire -- no homes are currently threatened, although it will be a long evening for some people, and some have actually evacuated already. As I was looking at news for this fire, I saw that there are also brush fires all over the State today. This may be the "fire season" that we are all dreading!
EDIT
As of 9/15, this fire is now still at under 2,000 acres, and about 80% contained. It has been determined that a homeowner had wrapped a small wooden fence around his yard in metal to keep the rats out -- the sun reflected off the metal, and sparked the fire! They are fortunate that no homes were in the path of the fire, and that there were no appreciable winds for the last few days!
Comments (16)
Good grief. I can only hope the person responsible was just careless, and not a "thrill seeking" pyromaniac.
I hope so too, Gary. It's hard to tell what might have happened at 10:30 am on a Friday -- kids should have been in school, so maybe a weekwhacker hit a rock or something like that?
Oh, wow! Fire can be so devastating. How far away is it from you.
It's probably 25-30 miles from my house. Believe it or not, there were even a few flakes of ash wafting this way!
Oh no! Such a tragedy when this happens. Such a loss of homes and vistas. I hope they can contain the fire quickly.
So far no houses lost, but there are some evacuations in case the winds change overnight. I, too, hope they get it out quickly. The heat won't help them, but the lack of wind will be a huge help! And the DC-10's are dropping water (or were this afternoon), which always makes a huge difference.
That is a lot of smoke! I hope you are not in harm's way. Fire is such a devastating force. I'll pray for everyone's safety and a quick resolution!
I'm about 20-25 miles away as the ash flies -- and did have a few flakes of ash this afternoon. So far people and homes are safe, horses evacuated, and the fire has been held to 1300 acres. We'll know better tomorrow how it's going!
We need some serious rain this winter.
We do! It needs to be constant, slow, soaking rain, so it doesn't just all run into the sea!
Hopeful this fire will remain local .
I haven't heard this morning, though I can still see smoke. I hope it will not spread to an area where there are homes!
We could smell it here this evening, some 60 miles away.
I think that on the first day I saw some flecks of ash landing on my car -- we're lucky that there was so little wind while it's been burning!
the threat seems ever-present, doesn't it? so unsettling for the residents ~ so sorry ~
We used to say that the fire season was from September until Thanksgiving -- it seems now to be all year. We've been very fortunate this year that there have not been many large fires in poulous areas! We have another few days of extreme heat in the offing -- hopefully there won't be more fires!
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