Monday, October 22, 2007

C'mon Baby Light My Fire


Wow. If you haven't heard, Southern California is on fire. Literally. We were all aware of the fires in Malibu and San Diego area, but it definitely got worse. Yesterday evening my parents called from a walk and said that they could see flames from the end of our street. Chelsea and I walked down, and you could actually see flames beneath the orange glow lighting up the sky. It was a while before it was on the news, but it is now being called the Santiago Canyon fire. We found out it was about 5 miles away. Here are updates if you want to see for yourself.
The main problem is that we are currently having our Santa Ana winds, which are incredibly strong (hurricane-force gusts), dry and hot. Not only that, but we had an incredibly dry summer. Last night there were 12 different fires in Southern California, and 7 counties are in a state of emergency. Luckily, although it got very close in Irvine, ours has not burned any homes yet. Tons of people are evacuated, and ours has burned over 8,800 acres. I learned this morning on the news that the Santiago Canyon fire was started by arson in 3 places - what sick person...? At one point last night, they were reporting that all of the fires were 0% controlled because the winds were so strong and erratic. Luckily, they are starting to get some control this morning, but not much. Please keep Southern California in your prayers!

1 comment:

Sarah said...

Jo, that's so scary! I'm definitely thinking about you. I talked to my sister this morning, she said there is ash on the ground there... Hopefully it will be under control before it gets any worse...