My husband was caught up in the fires. :( He was scheduled to visit a company in San Diego today. Around 6am, the hotel staff let the guests know that the area was being evacuated. The company DH was scheduled to visit, closed for the day. So he headed for the airport and rebooked himself on an earlier flight.

While he was waiting for his flight out of San Diego, he caught a news program that showed the area he had just been in - on fire.

Stay safe, everyone.

The pictures on TV News can't convey the actual enormity of the fire -- and they are still frightening.

All of you take care of yourselves and those you care about.

ETA: Our network generally carries the SDSU athletic news conference on Tuesday afternoon, but it appears that it will be re-scheduled or cancelled and the football team may move its practice out of the San Diego area.

warm thoughts and best wishes to everyone in the socal area.

a coworker of mine has a sister who is under mandatory evacuation, and her in-laws already lost their home :(

I managed to briefly stop in to SDSU today to e-mail my students to let them know I was cancelling class tomorrow. About an hour after I left, the university made the decision to close down through Tuesday. The university is not in immediate danger, but they don't want students and staff to clog the highway for no reason and, of course, to make sure that people take care of their families first.

SDSU has opened a shelter for displaced students and staff in Peterson Gym and I imagine that athletics will be cancelled for the time being.

.....Kelly :)

My prayers are with you all. My best chapter friend has already been evacuated, and my godson's family has been told to pack. :(

Navane, another friend of mine is a nurse, and is on an evacuation team. God bless all of you who are out there helping others. God bless you real good!

It literally looks like hell on earth.

It's still a disaster out here. While daybreak in a couple of hours will bring the winds; it will also give us a chance to work out what happened overnight. I'm hearing that we may get 6 or so fixed-wing aircraft to help drop water. If that's true, that will be a big help. They are reporting that one fire is 5% contained and the other is still 0% contained.

I've been at Qualcomm Stadium overnight and am now home for a rest period. (I just happen to live a 1/2 mile down the street from the stadium). We've got lots of people sheltering at the stadium and the community is really coming together to get donations, lending a hand and supporting each other.

They are reporting that there are currently more people displaced in San Diego County than there were in all of Hurricane Katrina - we have several hundreds of thousands evacuated at the moment.

If you pray, please pray HARD. We've already lost 600 structures and these many fires (including the two largest ones) are headed right towards areas which are more densely populated. The Witch Fire in the northern part of the county is now causing evacuations all the way west to the ocean, literally.

.....Kelly

I'm in Orange County and we were told to work from home today because our office is so close to the fire that not only is the air quality poor but it is dangerous as well.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comm...IDLink=3154663

Posting this because Farkers are great about posting updates and have been posting what's on the SD area scanners so that you can stay informed. There'll be a new thread each time one gets far enough off the front page.

I am looking out my sliding glass window looking at the mountain range
(Arrowhead, Crestline, 1-15 area ) and the entire mtn range is engulfed. It is scary. We are getting a lot of smoke our way. My sons teacher lives up in running springs/arrowhead area. She barely got to her house to grab things.

I work in OC too, a few miles from the Santiago fire. However, we haven't closed or been asked to telecommute. I think we should, considering the sheer population size of my place of employment. We'd at least get a lot of cars off the road, which might help somehow.

I heard about the new air equipment that will be coming in. I am hoping that today will bring news of more containment.

Yeah yesterday they came around and told everyone that we could leave early and work from home the rest of the day to beat traffic especially since the toll roads were closed a lot of people use that to get home. The other reason they told us to telecommute was the request by emergency services to keep the area clear for emergency vehicles.

I emailed with my cousin today. She said it took her over 2 hours to get home from work. Her brother was stuck in traffic for 4 hours. They live in Manifee and Riverside, respectively. How close are those cities to where everything is happening?

I've never heard of Manifee, but Riverside is not too far away from what is going on in the San Bernardino area.

It's Menifee. My mom earlier told me it was Medfee. Lol as much as we talk to my fam out there, we had no clue what the damn city was named. My dad is on the phone with my uncle now, so hopefully they'll be safe. (my cousin said Menifee is about a half hour from Riverside)