LA is on fire (August 09 version)
 

The hills above us are on fire. Like, massively on fire. We're not quite in the evacuation zone, but the smoke is rolling over us, and staying trapped in the valley. Woke up this morning gagging and coughing.

LA Times coverage is the best for updates.

Sheesh! Didn't realize you were THAT close! Please be careful.

Yeah, I have some other friends (on another board) who can see flames from their backyard. Smoke and ash.

You can see the flames from pretty much everywhere in LA. This fire is on the big mountain you see in the background on every postcard of the city.

yeah be careful smoothmoniker!

A few more pics:

Holy fnck smooth:3_eyes:! Did you take those? Run ... run away from the hills mate!

Amazing pictures. How can something so destructive look so beautiful?

Please be careful Smooth. Don't take any chances if it gets any closer, get the hell away.

Just now from my friend John:

OhManOhMan please don't let your amazing new house get burned.

I mean yeah, y'all are gonna get out if you have to, that's just common sense. But I love your house vicariously, and I don't want it to get hurt.

It's a stucco house with a tile roof, and no vegetation nearby. You would basically have to douse that thing in gasoline to get it to catch fire ...

... he said, foolishly taunting fate.

? They must make your stucco differently than they do here in Arizona. Stucco houses aren't all that flame resistant in my experience. I mean, my neighbor is pissed about his house, but really - what did he expect would happen when I said, "here, hold my beer..."?

stucco is basically crushed rocks.

Good luck man.:thepain:

Best wishes, Smooth.

Are you prepared to stay and defend your home? Or are you packed ready to evacuate, with copies of your insurance papers?

A few years ago I was on a business trip out in Montebello, a suburb near East L.A. While I was there they had one of these fires in the hills to the west. It might have been San Bernadino, which was 50 miles away. Intellectually, I knew the fire was so far away that there was no chance it would come close. Looking at the entire eastern horizon on fire, though, I felt like it was close enough to roast marshmallows.

I bet he has marshmallows, hersheys and graham crackers at the ready....

good luck, dude

If we get the evac order, we are gone.

There are no things that are more important than me being around to raise my kids. I honestly don't understand the people who stay, at all. Idiocy, and false heroics. It's dangerous, and worse, it causes other people (firefighters and parademics) to risk their own lives 12 hours later to come get you when you're trapped in your own burning yard.

There was a half-dozen people who ignored the evac order in Acton (north of the fires), and they put a whole fire crew at risk trying to pull them out of harms way.

Here's the updated map of the fire path. We live in Monrovia, and the southeast corner of the fire is about 10 miles from us.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UT...0&source=embed

View from space.

Very strange conversation with my wife tonight - deciding which things we should take with us if we have to evac.

Have you ever thought about it? In some ways, it's easier if you only have 5 minutes to grab and go. When you have 12+ hours, there's this odd sense that you have to get it exactly right, that there is some perfect list out there, and you have enough time that you ought to figure it out.

So long as that list begins:
1) wife
2) kids
3) self
4) single malt scotch

everything else falls into line, right? Sorry, I make completely inappropriate jokes when confronted with stressful thoughts. You and yours are in my prayers SM.

Smooth, I hope you guys stay safe!

The fires in LA are giving us hazy sunsets in my town.

pets!

no pets for us.

I had a conversation like this when watching floodwaters rise towards my bro's house. Take the irreplaceable stuff however financially valueless - everything of sentimental value rather than expensive things that'd be replaced by the insurance anyways. IMHO.

Hurricane Jimena is headed your way. It should put out the fires, but it'll bring its own problems. Man, you have fires, huricanes, earthquakes, smog, and riots.:thepain: Ever consider moving?

Posted in upsetting thread that family members of mine in three different homes have been told to evacuate - two refused - one stayed because he has a pumper truck and is protecting horses that the owners haven't been able to get out. my childhood home is two blocks south of the evac zone - my mom hasn't left the house except to volunteer at one of the animal evac shelters. I am so sad and scared and it sucks that I can't be there to lend a hand to my family.

Assuming you have 12 hours advance notice:

Box up the filing cabinet and save those records. All photo albums and negatives. Family videotapes. The external hard drive with all the digital pictures. Kids' artwork. The address book. Wall calendar. Sentimental value items that are easy to carry. High value items that are small and easy to carry. Clothes, and toiletries.

Then walk around with the digital camera and take pictures of the crap left behind for insurance purposes.

I'd be very torn when it comes to my work shop. I'd probably fill a couple boxes with heavy hand tools. Leave the big stuff to burn. We have a small car though, so most of the tools would burn. :sniff:

I'm probably missing some important stuff there.

Take the pictures first.;)

At one point in my life, even though there was no emergency, I took pictures of all my valuables, and noted all the serial numbers on my electronics. It's really hard to keep up with all the things you aquire and discard. And I got lazy.

We just moved, and make an insurance video when we did, so that's pretty recent.

It looks like the fire is slowing down, and moving parallel to us rather than toward us. Back down to DEFCON 3.

Where are you Smuv? I grew up in La Canada (mom's still there) and my relaitves are in Tujunga, La Crescenta, and Altadena, all right up against the mountains of course.

Monrovia, north of Foothill, up against the mountains.

I just talked to Liz, my friend who lives in the Mt Washington neighborhood. She's about a 30 minute drive from the peak of Mt Wilson. She was wearing a wet bandanna over her face when we talked. She can only see a hazy shape that is Mt Wilson from her house now. They won't get burned where they are, but things are bad in LA.

Current news reports say that the Mt Wilson observatory and antenna complex will be overrun by the fire sometime tonight. On the plus side, firefighters have been on site pretty much all day laying down foam and other retardants, setting backfires and removing other fuel sources so that, when the fire does come, it will have much less chance of doing catastrophic damage to the historic scientific facility and the communications center right next to it.

For me it's less about what I would take and more about how far could I get down the list before the car got full. Usually, my planning is more centered around flooding rather than wildfires, so it often involves moving all the expensive electronics and furniture up to the second floor in the hopes that the water doesn't go that high.

Another picture, more here.

From xoB's link, our house is about an inch below the bottom right corner of this photo.

One of the side issues of the fire is that wildlife has been flooding down from the mountains into the hillside neighborhoods. There are always some woodland visitors, but in the past week, it's been a parade of bears, deer, even mountain lions, and they are getting quite bold. A bear walked into someone's home yesterday morning, and started going through their pantry.

I remember that. A few years ago, bears were strolling into Mesa, AZ. Mesa is the... less evolved? side of Phoenix. They hit them with tranq guns and sent them back to the mountains.

I'm waiting for a joke that starts ... So, three bears walked into a bar....


(...and so I figured ...)


... and walked up to the barman and said "Is Ian here?"

"Ian who?" replies the barman

"You know" say the bear "He's always in here. He's the one with the helmet with the horns".

"Oh, right, the Bar Bear Ian...."


.


Sorry.

is there something that makes that funny in basswords ops center?

oh lord, that's an awful joke.

Ye Omniscient Google sayeth: No results found for "basswords ops center".
Whassdat?

True. :hangs head in shame:

The nerve!

:whip: ten lashes for that one

:eek:

Anyone remember if Bullitt is fightin fires this year?

I was wondering about that, too.

Me too.

Yeah, me too. I thought that he was out of the business though. Did anyone try to contact him?

I pm'd him awhile ago... Was just thinkin about him too. Didn't he say he was gonna move or something?

Well, the Station fire is interesting local news, but I'm well west of the action, upwind by the prevailing winds. This is a large fire without the hot desert Santa Ana winds fanning it, or it might have given tons of trouble to the LA 'burbs. We've gotten a very hazed horizon and we've seen the top of the smoke cloud (very far to the east, but anomalously located, not blowing away, otherwise looking a lot like any cumulus cloud) but that's been it. Hardly even a smell of smoke, and no ashfalls.

The second half of this story begins in about 4 months. This is expected to be an El Niño year, which means massive rainstorms for LA. All of the ground cover and root systems that normally hold our mountains in place just burned to the ground.

There are going to be catastrophic mud slides in the affected areas if El Niño hits.

More pictures at Boston.com.

Great pics. That site of Boston.com has some really great pics on lots of different subjects.

Views from my aunt/uncle's driveway Monday night, and from my cousin's street Tuesday afternoon:
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Latest reports now say they confirm it was arson. Great.

Sana Ana wind season (even though they haven't hit yet, it's that time of year) and all of the crazies come out with their matches - The ones in Yucaipa and Riverside were confirmed as arson too. I say tie them to the stake and light a match........

I was gonna post to ask if this was just a natural occurence or arson :(

The Station Fire started in the Angeles National Forest, 39 miles out from "the city," about a mile from the nearest ranger station or picnic area - no power lines, no lightning, just a scenic turn out. My guess is a stray cigarette out a window. Happens a lot up there. (Good make out spots. So I've heard...)