[phisigduchesscv]

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