Southern California wildfires

[Aanvil]

MTGuru has evacuated from Scripps Ranch to a neighbor's relatives house in Serra Mesa

We're exhausted, but fine. They had a mandatory evacuation of Crest, Harbison Canyon, and West Alpine, which are the three areas east of us, and there was a lot of confusion if there was an actual fire threatening the area. Apparently it was a very cautionary evacuation, just in case either the Witch fire sent a finger south or the Harris fire came north. Neither scenario occurred overnight and all the fires are now mostly west and north/south of us. So, most likely we're OK, but staying very diligent, we've packed up the car and truck/trailer and are ready to evac with the horse/donkeys if absolutely required.

Dang Michael,

Glad to hear you are all ok so far.

I was starting to worry.

I hope they get that all under control.

Be careful out there!

[eskin]

MTGuru is back home as far as I know, Scripps Ranch evac has been called off.

We have one large fire that still is a potential threat to us in the back country, once that's out, we're going to finally leave the house.

These are very strange times, when you ride out a natural disaster in your home office with an AM radio, Google Earth, a chat room, live webcams (thank you John!), and a direct link to the government emergency operations site. Very different from the fires four years ago when we lived in the local park for two days with 5 horses and three cats...

[Steamwalker]

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&ms ... 1fe3357571

The main fear in my neck of the woods is that the Rice, Poomacha and Witch Creek fires will converge into a mega fire which would threaten much of North San Diego county.

[emmline]

Geesh. I watched CNN for a while. It's scarcely imaginable.

[Jumper]

The media reported a mandatory evacuation order for Rancho San Diego, where my mother lives in an assisted living facility. I drove out there to collect her, passing by the foot of Mt. San Miguel, which has been burning all day.

However, it turned out that the order was given in error, or perhaps misinterpreted by the media. In any case, the air quality where she lives is better than at my home, and she has air conditioning, which I do not, so we decided that she should stay put. I had dinner there with her and came home.

We're all feeling quite edgy here. The winds have died down quite a bit today, and there's a possibility that the wind will change directions to an onshore (westerly) flow tomorrow. That would cause the fires to burn away from our direction, but I can't help recalling that some of the worst damage from the 2003 Cedar fire was after the winds changed direction, and the fires burned back in the direction they came from, broadening fronts and catching plenty of people by surprise.

[cowtime]

That has got to be a horrible stress in lots of ways. Thoughts and prayers for you all.

[anniemcu]

MTGuru is back home as far as I know, Scripps Ranch evac has been called off.

We have one large fire that still is a potential threat to us in the back country, once that's out, we're going to finally leave the house.

These are very strange times, when you ride out a natural disaster in your home office with an AM radio, Google Earth, a chat room, live webcams (thank you John!), and a direct link to the government emergency operations site. Very different from the fires four years ago when we lived in the local park for two days with 5 horses and three cats...

Glad to hear. Hope it subsides.

[Denny]

[eskin]

Here's a timelapse of the progression of the Harris fire over the past three days up to about 9 AM this morning, the view from Lyon's Peak about 10 miles east of me looking west towards San Miguel Mountain:

http://www.tradlessons.com/?page_id=71

[djm]

Vid no longer available. That was quick. Fire musta got to it.

djm

[eskin]

Try it again... I was getting that earlier...

[djm]

Wow! That gets pretty dramatic towards the end.

djm

[Jumper]

Vid no longer available. That was quick. Fire musta got to it.

The fire did get to the cams, as Lyons Peak where they were located has burned over:

http://sosdfireblog.blogspot.com/2007/1 ... te_24.html

Over 300,000 acres (121,000 hectares or 468 sq. miles) have now burned in the county. Approximately 600,000 people have been evacuated from their homes.

Two new fires started overnight inside of Camp Pendelton Marine Base, closing the Interstate 5 freeway in both directions. The power transmission lines leading away from the San Onofre nuclear generation plant are now threatened.

A fire that started yesterday as a house fire on the La Jolla Indian Reservation at the base of Mount Palomar grew very quickly, and overnight merged with the huge Witch fire, and now threatens all of Mount Palomar, where an observatory with a 200-inch telescope is located.

As feared, winds have shifted to the west. This does increase the humidity and lower temperatures, as the breeze is from the ocean, but as I noted yesterday, it makes firefighting effort very unpredictable, and much more dangerous for those on the ground.

[Brewster]

Sending my positive thoughts and prayers to all of you in southern CA. Be safe.

[eskin]

Looks like the live feed is down from Lyon's Peak, but the camera is still apparently collecting images as of 12:30 PM, they are archiving the timelapse movies at:

http://archive.hpwren.ucsd.edu/Animatio ... e11/dates/

Scroll all the way to the bottom for the latest movies.