Hellfire.

Bex wrote about it earlier today. I've been following the updates online since talking to the Goldstein clan while they were being evacuated from Encinitas, texting them updated road closures on the route to Palm Springs, where they were headed to Grandma's. Southern California is burning all up.

This map scares the shit out of me. Right now there are TWENTY fires listed from Santa Maria to San Diego. The satellite photo posted by Bex reminds me of this one from a few months back of the Greek islands. Is it really a coincidence that all of these fires are burning all at once?

Living in the cool wet climate here, it is easy for me to forget about how the hot dry Santa Ana winds make you feel like you will spontaneously combust at the next spark on your skin or static charge through your hair. Yes, gale force winds (hurricane wind speeds, according to NPR) and the dry parched chaparral that practically wills itself to burn - part of the landscape life cycle - are completely conducive to these types of fires, of course living in California there are out of control fires almost every year. But look at the map, look at this sat photo:



Is that how it happens, really? Do 15 or 20 fires spontaneously erupt in a two day span up and down the lower left of a state?

I don't know how many people have died so far, nor how many homes have burned. I know the fire crews are worn out and that people are scared and that there are no answers that satisfy anyone at this time. One fire commissioner said today that several of the SD fires will probably just have to burn down to the water's edge, that there are simply not enough resources to win the battle on every flaming front at this point. Which reminds me - where's the National Guard, and don't they usually come out and assist in local disasters like this?

Oh yeah.