San Diego fires

[Urbane Guerrilla]

A dozen named fires distributed over seven Southern CA counties.

Saw two of them driving back from a trip to Las Vegas, for they were visible from Highway 14 -- the biggie in Canyon Country and what looked to be a smaller brushfire, trying steadily to burn uphill against the wind. Big fire was smoking the hell out of Santa Clarita immediately to its west. We can smell the burning and see the haze and occasional fall of black ash. There is smoke and haze around all points of the compass, though less north of Oxnard. Some of the Malibu smoke is no doubt coming straight at us.

A wind day, a flame day, a day of haze and ashes.

If it's irritating to the throat I can't tell; a feature of this week is I've already got a cough. Which is getting better.

The winds are powerful today; they've only slacked with the sun going down. We tend to get our fires when Santa Ana winds blow, and we get troublesome fires if they blow hard, which they did yesterday and today. It's dry and it's warm around here. With as much wind as we're getting, for once the newsies have it right in speaking of undomesticated blazes as "wildfires." You need real wind to make a brush fire truly wild.

Called my mom to tell her we weren't in trouble.