The mdonleys, so far, are OK.

Mom is in Lake Forest, near the Santiago Fire in Orange County, and a roommate's parents from college are in Escondido, near one of the San Diego fires, and both still have houses, so far. Various friends of my brother who attend his high school, however, live in the Foothill Ranch, Portola Hills, and Santiago Canyon areas, and those areas are most threatened by the fire in Orange County. Mom lives adjacent to the southernmost extent of the fire on this map, near the intersection of Trabuco Road and Bake Parkway.

Roommate's parents/animals evacuated yesterday, as they're in a little more rural situation - they live on the north side of San Pasqual Road, literally across the street from the northern edge of the Witch Fire in Escondido; Mom's not under a mandatory evacuation order, and is relatively sheltered in a condo complex surrounded by other structures; Dad's house is just a few miles down the road, though, should the order come to leave. My brother's high school is being used as an evacuation center.

If you've never been there around this time of year, imagine 100F/38C temperatures, gale/hurricane force wind gusts, and land that has been parched from nearly a year without any significant rainfall.

Hope everyone else is OK! I'm in Latvia, powerless and without any colleagues who understand what a combination of 500 square miles/1300 square kilometers of fire and 15 million people looks like, so I needed this little brain dump to make it to work today and stay sane. Thanks.

aaargh. I know how you feel, mdonley, I had the same thing with Katrina, and my friends and family in New Orleans/Louisiana.

We also had our wildfire tragedies here in Greece this summer, on a shattering scale. That feeling of total helplessness when faced with those high winds and dryer-than-dry acres and acres, with no humidity and the sun scorching ever hotter, like some leering god. Awful. Crushing. And what made it even worse is that so many of our fires were started by arson... because greedy developers want to build on protected land. Do I understand correctly that this is a possible aspect of the the San Diego fires as well?

All my liberal positioning just sort of goes flying out the window, and I want those people to die in fire.

in San Diego, arson, at any rate - not necessarily for real estate-acquisition purposes

SoCal please come take our rain away.

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Found this photo set on the Yahoo news page about the fire, some pretty astounding images. It's so hard for me as a life-long east-coaster to wrap my head around the idea that the hills could catch fire like that. Scary as hell.

It's horrible. I'm glad your family is OK mdonley.

Jeez, I'm glad to hear your people are safe and I hope they stay safe. My aunt is staying with my cousin in Maryland while the fires burn in her neighborhood out there. She's pretty stoic about it, but it's gotta be scary.

Do I understand correctly that this is a possible aspect of the the San Diego fires as well?

California fires are often arson of one type or another. Sometimes, they're accidental, but "accidental" forest fires of this magnitude should almost be considered a form of arson.

I've been close to two or three forest fires in my life, although thankfully I've never had to evacuate. I'm glad that all the bunny families are safe.

I gather they get so out of control because of the dry autumn chaparral, a sappy mix of evergreen plants that burns hot and fast as part of its life cycle (the seeds don't burn; the ashes invigorate the earth and the fires destroy competing plant species, guaranteeing the success of the next generation); the intense heat and sap of the burning chaparral ensconces the top layer of dirt in a plasticky coating that prevents it from soaking up water, so when the next heavy rains come, the top inch of soil in areas that have burned turns into the tremendously fast-moving debris flows we call mudslides.

Often state agencies have controlled chaparral burns to mitigate future mudslides; sometimes the flames get out of control even in the hands of professionals. One can imagine how easy it would be for any kind of fire to lose control quickly with that much perfect fuel around.

Scary.