Fire

At 1:10 this afternoon, T called us out onto the porch: a fire had started just a mile away from our home. In dry Southern California, with temperatures near 100 and humidity less than 20%, with even the offroad area closed this last weekend due to fire danger, fire is a dangerous, frightening thing. Especially with the fire so close that the smoke billowed overhead, obscuring the sun and giving off a dimmed, orange light.

So far, over 1200 acres have burned, one firefighter injured, 400 firefighters and nine aircraft, and the potential for the fire to burn 10,000 acres. We've been put on alert by the Sheriff's Department, but no evacuations yet. Even still, people are evacuating their animals and packing their things, just in case.



The smoke early in the afternoon -- photo taken from our front yard.



As we drove away to go into the city, children and animals taken with us to be on the safe side, I shot this quick photo across the meadow out the window of my car.



Coming home, driving up the freeway, this is what we saw. (Taken by E as I drove.)



As we came back into town, we looked south of the offramp and the kids began to panic a bit.... (Also taken by E.)