We were welcomed back to California by a pretty strong earthquake this summer; no real damage done, just some scared kids. We are also getting treated to what seems now to be an annual very active fire season. The Santa Ana's are back (strong winds, warm weather) and humidity is very low. Gusts up to 60-70 miles per hour race through the canyons and passes here. Our porch furniture relocates to the south side of our back yard, the kids plastic two level play structure fell down and we no longer wonder why the tree in the backyard tilts so severely to the south!
The biggest fire burning tonight can be seen from our front porch. There are actually 2 or 3 fires off in that direction and in the pictures below you can see some of the smoke billows. I don't remember ever hearing of so many houses being lost. The wind is moving those hot embers so quickly that the fire crews were overwhelmed earlier today. The winds have laid down a little tonight and the crews are furiously working to put down lines and defenses, but for the most part the fire is totally uncontained so if the winds pick up again, there will be very little to stop it from taking more houses.
When my mom and sisters were out in September we stayed at a hotel in Yorba Linda right off the 91 freeway. A strip mall a few hundred feet away from that hotel was on fire earlier this afternoon, and was completely destroyed. I'm sure there is other damage in the area, which is less than 20 miles from us. The wind is blowing the fire and smoke away from us so we don't have any side effects of poor air quality, ash snow or even a smoky smell in the air, but a few miles away it is a totally different story.
The big plume in the middle of this picture is the Yorba Linda fire, the one to the right is the Brea fire.
The biggest fire burning tonight can be seen from our front porch. There are actually 2 or 3 fires off in that direction and in the pictures below you can see some of the smoke billows. I don't remember ever hearing of so many houses being lost. The wind is moving those hot embers so quickly that the fire crews were overwhelmed earlier today. The winds have laid down a little tonight and the crews are furiously working to put down lines and defenses, but for the most part the fire is totally uncontained so if the winds pick up again, there will be very little to stop it from taking more houses.
When my mom and sisters were out in September we stayed at a hotel in Yorba Linda right off the 91 freeway. A strip mall a few hundred feet away from that hotel was on fire earlier this afternoon, and was completely destroyed. I'm sure there is other damage in the area, which is less than 20 miles from us. The wind is blowing the fire and smoke away from us so we don't have any side effects of poor air quality, ash snow or even a smoky smell in the air, but a few miles away it is a totally different story.
The big plume in the middle of this picture is the Yorba Linda fire, the one to the right is the Brea fire.
No comments:
Post a Comment