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San Diego Fires -- 2007

I'm in Long Beach where we have no worries of fires, but the air quality is the worst I've ever seen it. It's actually difficult to breathe outside. :(

I can only pray for the people that are on the front lines (both home owners and firefighters alike).
-Chasen
 
Mechcozmo said:
...

Mira Mesa has been evacuated. Linkety
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Correction: Scripps Ranch has been evac'ed (see comments @ blog post)

I live in Mira Mesa, but am out of town and watching this intently. :eek: We have friends from Scripps who were watching our cats staying at our place, hoping the fire doesn't shift back and hop I-15/SR 56 heading South and/or West.

Stay safe everyone and pray the wind actually dies down tonight like it's supposed to and the weather starts cooperating tomorrow.
 
Scripps Ranch again? That area got hit so hard in 2004. In fact that very weekend I was attending a conference at a hotel in Mission Canyon. Had a heck of a time getting home, only to find that Ventura County had hardly been spared.
 
We're starting to get precautionary evacuation orders for areas north of Simi Valley from the latest blaze, the "Magic" fire. The "Ranch" fire is now 41,000 acres. Both of these fires are headed my way, though still about 15 miles off.

The winds are expected to slack off some tomorrow, but the temperatures will be up substantially.
 
It's pretty crazy

We've been required to leave since earlier, we're in the Poway/Carmel Mtn Ranch region but they made it mandatory. I'm pretty sure our area is going to be ok, but not much can be said about my friend's house in Rancho Bernardo.

Took this picture with iPhone while driving past Lake Hodges in Escondido at around 10:30 P.M. Definitely not as good as other pictures, but this was right next to the freeway. Just in case anyone's wondering, on the right side is a fire engine attempting to control the flames, and I think it is under control by now.

My thoughts go out to everyone else that lost homes.

20071022-225131-1.jpg
 
Some pretty intense flames encircling Castaic. Me and the neighbors are loaded up, simply waiting for the evac call... :eek:

The Stevenson ranch fire appears to now be the hwy. 126 fire. And boy is it a big fire. Driving by on the I-5 it appears absolutely apocalyptic.

I'm not worried about my house at all... I'd actually welcome the opportunity for a fresh start (insurance ftw!). It's really quite amazing, when narrowing my life down to whatever fits in the trunk of my car, how much stuff I have that I really don't need!
 
MACDRIVE said:
Okay I read through this entire thread. I used to live down in San Diego during the 1980's. Has anyone heard word of a cause for these fires yet?
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With around a dozen fires burning, they will have lots of causes. I know at least one was attributed to a downed power line and another was thought to be arson. With this wind, heat and intense dryness, it doesn't take much to start a conflagration.

BTW, the Magic fire is still being tallied at 1,200 acres and the Ranch fire at 41,000 acres. SR 126 is closed between Piru and the county line.
 
If you have Google Earth you can get great information by overlaying the MODIS fire-watching satellite information and the KBPS overlay.

Links coming in a sec.

EDIT: Get them from here: Linkety

The MODIS data is invaluable as it gives you hard data where the fire has been; the KBPS data is useful for estimation purposes.
 
Just tapped into the Forums and needed to add my concern for you guys breathing through the fires. I can't begin to fathom what it means to have your homes and lives threatened like this. Take care.
 
Well today the part of Poway I'm from got ok'ed to return. Had everything packed since late sunday night... I know they "ok'ed" it but still wondering if I should return home. For the people that know people in poway or are from poway check out http://www.poway.org
 
With the swath that the fires are covering, I'm glad that authorities have been as coordinated as they have been. I imagine that the human toll could have been horrendous.

If the weather doesn't turn soon, I hope and pray that they can keep it up.
 
I'm rather surprised to hear so many reports that the evacuation centers are being run smoothly. We know that people with a gripe are more likely to make noise than those having no trouble, yet the news about them has been consistently good. Let's hear a cheer for the volunteers at those centers.
 
I've updated my website with auto-refreshing KMZ files. It's as close to real-time data as you can get.
Linkety

They refresh once an hour, so you should get fresh MODIS data (they update their stuff once an hour) but the KBPS map is updated at random intervals.

Import those files into Google Earth and you can see where houses fall. I know a couple of my friend's houses lie right near the border areas of 'burned' and 'evacuated', but the MODIS data shows fire less than a half-mile away. :(
 
i feel bad for everyone involved in socal, but i'm just wondering if the main core of san diego is being threatened as of now, because if so, we could be seeing the next new orleans. and with this, i'll have to rethink moving back to cali anytime soon...i need to email my friends to see if they are okay.
 
To everyone in California I wish you the best. It seems to be a pretty bad situation out there. I watched the news today, the devastation seems to be horrible, but at least help seems a lot more organized then Katrina.

I had to laugh though, they had a segment on the news about evacuating animals and they showed this person leading their horse down the road by tying their horse to their Jaguar XK8 convertible and driving it down the road.
It upsets me though how much they are talking about celebrities that live in the burning areas. Seriously, if their house burns down, they loose a lot, but they have a lot and they probably have insurance. I feel bad for all the average people out there that cannot afford to loose everything they own.

Anyways, good luck and stay safe!
 
The British papers have picked up on this now, I feel sorry for you guys :eek: to live in such a visually nice area but have to put up with this kind of threat.

We sometimes get fires up on the moors, since it's just giant blobs of peat resting on the surface of England they tend to get very vicious. Nothing on this scale though. British weather soon see's to that! Apart from last year when it didn't and some surrounding villages were evacuated.
 
Brush fires have always been a part of life in Southern California. The really tough part about these fires is that they come only four years almost to the day since the last round of devastating brush fires in Southern California. With all of the new construction in foothill areas combined with a prolonged drought and trend towards warmer weather, it seems inevitable that these events will become more frequent.
 
here is a pic from my area where the fires are burning in Orange County. Pretty intense, Today we are smoked in our homes and it is too thick to go outside:mad:
 
bennyek said:
here is a pic from my area where the fires are burning in Orange County. Pretty intense, Today we are smoked in our homes and it is too thick to go outside:mad:
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I guess Southern Californians are hot to get Leopard. :eek:

Some people in San Diego are returning from evacuation center to those homes. The ones who still have homes, that is. But I heard that two more lives were lost in Poway. We're not out of this yet.
 
Doctor Q said:
I guess Southern Californians are hot to get Leopard. :eek:

Some people in San Diego are returning from evacuation center to those homes. The ones who still have homes, that is. But I heard that two more lives were lost in Poway. We're not out of this yet.
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i'm still wondering if the downtown core has sustained fire damage. if so, san diego is the next new orleans.
 
furcalchick said:
i'm still wondering if the downtown core has sustained fire damage. if so, san diego is the next new orleans.
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The answer is no. These fires take residential buildings located in hillside suburban areas for the most part. You're hearing a lot about the huge numbers of people evacuated, but these numbers are probably way too high, and do not represent people who have necessarily lost their homes. The vast majority of evacuees haven't lost their homes.
 
Also, the number of people evacuated was exaggerated in much of the news. The numbers you were hearing may have been the count of people who were advised to evacuate, and the count wasn't lowered as some returned to their homes, so even if everyone had done as advised, they wouldn't have been in the evacuation centers all at the same time. If somebody was twice advised to evacuate, they may have counted them twice.
 
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