It's burning in Southern California.......
 

It's raining ash right now from all the brush fires going on in SoCal. I'm up here in UC Irvine and back home in San Diego it's burning as well. To the northwest and northeast are two different fires as well. South of me it's burning at the Marine base at Camp Pendleton.

I'm in southeastern San Diego County right now. No fires here, but the smoke is incredible.

My mom's house is 10 minutes away and is pretty much going to be gone, two of our pledge's houses are gone, I watched my best friend from high school's street burn down. My cousin's house in Mira Mesa is in danger and they've been evacuated. One of those pledges basically gets to watch the place where he grew up be destroyed.

There's seriously no stressing how bad the fire is. We're 35 minutes away and we can't even see the sun, it's just been an orange haze and ash has covered EVERYTHING. Delta Gamma has cancelled the basketball tourney cause no one can breathe, and they're talking about canceling class.

Sad day indeed. But I know the guy upstairs works in wierd ways, and I just have faith everything will work out.

My place in Irvine might be used by my SDSU KKPsi bros and TBS sisters if they have to evacuate.

I woke up this morning and my entire bed and night stand were covered in ash. My bed's under my window and I left it open last night. Stupid me. My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have lost their house. Hopefully this will all end soon. :(

HI There,

Where I live in Carson (suburb of L.A near the beaches), we're at least 40 miles from any of the forest fires blazing in Southern California but the smoke is so bad that the whole Los Angeles Basin has this orange haze throughout. I washed my car this morning and have a 1/4 inch layer of ash on the car already. When you walk outside it's so smoky that you would think you're right next to a campfire. We had to close up all the windows and doors to the house because the house was starting to smell like smoke.

My parents and I are amateur radio operators and both of them are members of the disaster communication network for the county. We just heard over the radio that a small fire has now been spotted near Malibu, a water dropping helicopter has already been dispatched. Hopefully it is able to stop it before it spreads too mcuh.

Can anyone do a rain dance for Southern California, we could really use it about now - they can't even estimate when the fires are even going to be contained at this point.

Carolyn

This is so sad.

Brings back memories of the huge Colorado fires last summer. Ash on everything at the house -- including a fair amount inside the house. Choking smoke and, as described earlier, the orange glow of the sun thru the smoke.

And we were thirty-five miles away from the fire.

Denver, like LA is basically in a basin and the smoke, etc. is held close to the ground.

What a mess. I feel for all of you.

The media isn't doing a good job of covering everything. The LA news channels aren't showing what's going on back home in San Diego so I'm left clueless. My only news from back home are my friends and some of them have packed up just in case they need to evacuate.

Hey Mike,

The TV news crews aren't doing a good job of covering San Diego but put on KNX 1070 or possibly KFWB 980 on am radio. They have been doing a good job of saying what is going on in San Diego. KNX especially this afternoon was bringing on emergency personnel from San Diego to report what is going on, what roads were closed, etc.

Carolyn

We have our own brushfires here, but I can only imagine what it's like over there right now.

I was talking to a friend from San Diego and we kept on getting cut off. When we didn't get cut off, the phone convo had horrible, horrible static. I kept on getting pissed off before he told me it was because of the fires. He was surfing today when he noticed that it was snowing....ash.

Maybe Cali will be more open to logging companies doing some limited cutting in the future? This has really helped some areas and lack of it has really hurt other areas.

A couple years ago, we had a huge fire come very close to my parents' house in Oklahoma. They live kind of out at the edge of suburbia (semi-boonies) and it's not a great feeling when it's that close.

Stay safe!

Actually for a lot of the fires it's not trees that are burning but sage brush. The fires in San Bernardino/Crestline/Arrowhead are trees burning that have been killed by bark beetles and drought for the last few years. The areas around Simi Valley are very few trees, mostly sage brush, creosote, and other chapparal. Plus a lot of the areas that are burning are next to developments where if there were trees they were cut down when they built the developments. Most of So. Cal would actually be more desert like except for the fact we use a lot of water from the aquaduct and from the Colorado River.

I'm not as familiar with the areas of the fires in San Diego maybe someone could talk about whether those areas are forested or covered with chapparal instead.

So far the news is now saying there are 10 major fires burning in the So Cal area. Ventura, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Diego counties are all ablaze. None of the fires are even close to being contained. There are fire engine companies coming in from all over the West and we're still going to be shorthanded with fire personnel. It almost seems that the fire trucks are just jumping from area to area just to try to save houses and don't have a chance to actually try to stop the fire.

Now we almost have to pray it doesn't rain for quite a while. They need to get these areas reseeded asap otherwise in December through March you're going to be hearing on the news about massive landslides and floods in these areas next.

Well, I'm off to get ready for work. Let's hope that my building is really a closed ventillation system or it's not going to be a fun day today try to breathe. I was coughing all night long the air quality is so bad. Quite a few school districts have cancelled classes today because of it. The worst part for the kids is that they really shouldn't be going outside to play today.

Carolyn

it's really creep here right now. my friend is staying with me at the phi psi house because she was evacuated. i know a lot of other people who have done the same, and 4 guys in my house have had their parents houses burnt down. there are other guys i know from IFC who have had the same... the sky is orange, and raining ash. the creepy thing is when you go on the 4th floor you can see the fire. they cancled class at sdsu today, and unless this gets better they most likely will cancel it tomorrow too--you cant even breath outside.

All of Cowles Mountain in the San Carlos-Del Cerro/Navajo Park area in San Diego is torched off... I know because I grew up in that area for close to 25 years... My folks went up on Hemingway Drive, up the street from my childhood home off Cibola and they saw the flames on the north side of Mission Gorge at around 4 PMish... These flames jumped over to the south side, near the homes and burned those houses down. The police and firefighters evacuated everyone from Princess View Way to Golfcrest. This burn was after the Scripps Ranch and Tierrasanta torchings.

If the Santa Ana winds pick up more, the burn will go all the way to the US-Mexico border in the East County. The sad part is, there are $$$million dollar homes all in the way. And there is illegal activities--such as meth labs with volatiles... I heard that the firefighters in San Bernadino were trying to put out one fire and a gas main exploded...

The irony is, I have been calling my folks home to see if the answering machine cuts on... It still does... It may mean the answering machine didn't get burnt or the house is still standing...

The police are not letting anyone back into their areas to get anything they forgot at their houses... Out of the 5 cars my dad owns, my folks only take one... Don' t ask why... But my dad was ready to go back and get things after the police had made their annoucement to evacuate.

Fortunately for my family, my folks purchased a condo for me in 1996 near the Stadium in Mission Valley. So my folks and another couple are staying there. But it is very scary and I cannot fathom the stinky smell of burn wood and crap that is pervading the air in San Diego right now.

And they shut down everything!!!

On top of that, Mayor Dick Murphy's former campaign manager lived down the street from me, two houses down from my best friend... And they live across the street from Mission Gorge Road!!! :eek:

Anyhow, any of you spiritual folks out there need to pray for all of the folks in So Cal right now. We are really suffering...

And for you folks that have issues for asking for prayer--don't go there with me right now... Just keep it to yourself right now...