I'm sure many of you know that Southern California is completely on fire right now. The Santa Ana winds are strong and, coupled with the drought we had in California this past winter, everything is going up. Close to 1,000,000 people have been evacuated from their homes. Over 1200 homes have already burned. It looks like my crew is mobilizing to head down in the next couple of days.

This thing is pretty serious. I hope that none of our fellow Massassians who live down that way have lost their homes or been forced to evacuate.

Kill it with fir......D:

But seriously, I feel really bad for those people. How was the fire started?

There are 12 fires burning right now. I don't think anyone knows how they started.

12? Yikes, that is a lot. But yeah, I'm sure our cali-sassians are fine.

I wish your crew good luck.

Wow - didn't know that many people had to evacuate. Good luck over there!

Taken about 1.5 hours ago from my high-tech 1.3 megapixel LG Chocolate.
The last one actually started to make a funnel!
(edit)
ok, it wasn't an actual tornado. There was alot of spinning and stuff, but it was just because of the winds.

This fire is in the Foothill ranch / Rancho Santa Marguerita area, aka northern middle area of Orange County.

Scale images.

damn, that is pretty much a firestorm, in that those fires are produceing their own weather system, which makes it much nastier. this is also what causes those funnels of fire.

Avenger will fight 'em.

No sports for two days in my region and I hate this stupid heat.

Sky's full of smoke too. Idiots in my 6th period were running.

Clearly, Hell is in the process of annexing California.

That's a blow up. The spinning your seeing is a fire whirl. Basically a tornado of fire that burns everything. Right now, because of the wind, there is no way to fight these fires. We won't be able to attack them until the winds let up.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=14579

You can get an idea of much fire there is with satellite image in the link above. Thats all the smoke drifiting over the ocean.

D:
Good god.

*looks at the stream labeled "dust"*

AUUUNTIEEEEEE!!!!!

this is probably in bad taste but i can't help myself
DALF IS ON FIRE. WATCH IT BURN.

A have a cousin, aunt and uncle in California.

Besides liberal environmental policies they are saying that some are natural and others are arson.

That's usually the case. I read somewhere that power lines were to blame for one of them.

well, this is actually pretty crazy. i live in orange county right now and the sky is pretty much brownishorange and it is literally raining ash.i cant see any of the actual fires from where i am but my parents live in redlands and they are real close to the lake arrowhead fire and can see it coming over the mountain. stupid california! first 2003 now again in 07!

California burns. Fire is part of the natural history. Thing is, we came in and ****ed up the natural fire regime with a 100 years of suppression policy. Now, places that are supposed to burn every 5-15 years haven't burned in 100. Fuel has built up, so the fires get big. On top of that, people like living in the hills where fire is going to be.

San Diego is very drought stricken right now. We've had two years of consecutive rainfall amounts that were well below normal (some like 3% - 5% of normal). Take this along with 60 MPH gusts and air that dries out what little moisture is left in the ground and the result is that San Diego County is burning to the ground. It wasn't more than four years ago to this day that the Cedar Fire torched a significant amount of real estate. The Witch Creek fire is burning over those burned areas again.

The smoke appears to have abated some. All today, the skies were grey with an orange sun. The smell of smoke permeates the air thickly. My car is covered in ash along with just about everything else. Cars drive by and you can see the ash wakes from them going by.

My workplace is in Rancho Bernardo. According to most maps I've seen, had I been at the office, I could have watched the fire burn right across the street (Rancho Bernardo Rd). Some of my coworkers had to be evacuated from their homes. One might have even had their house burn down as it was in the fire's path. I haven't heard from them all day.

Edit: Avenger: If you're going to go firefighting in Western San Diego, hit me up.

Edit 2: God help us if we have a really wet season this year. Mudslides galore!

Glad to hear from you, man.

Yeah I'm ok. Google Earth/Vista decided to be a ***** and utterly freeze my computer. This is where I'm at in relation to the fires.

The fire(s) near Malibu were of accidental origin. Apparently, there was an accidental electrical fire at a construction site that quickly grew out of control due to winds. At least two fires in the San Bernardino mountains (Lake Arrowhead fires) were arson. The others are cause unknown, but with gusts exceeding 100mph (160kmh) it will be nearly impossible for them to be stopped, controlled, or even slowed down.

Good luck Avenger, JediGandalf, and any others who may be affected. Stay safe.

That's one hell of a commute...

The fires are getting close to where I live. They're on their way to Anza which is southeast of Hemet. It's not a problem for Anza, because they can just hitch up their trailers and move the town, but It's a concern for us people here knowing that the fires are surrounding us =/.

Hmm, I have family in Escondido, hope they're alright.

Are these at all related to the fires back in August, or are they completely different?

And lastly, good luck, Avenger/cali-sassians.

Cali at night looks similar to Mustafar.

THE APOCALYPSE BEGENNITH AND THE WICKED SHALL BURN!

Come on don't say you weren't thinking it
.

mordor?

Thankfully the situation here in Riverside isn't too serious. The only fire I saw was from the Galleria mall on Tyler but it was nothing too serious. The crazy winds manage to make the air smell like smoke for the past few days so my folks and I keep the windows close to keep out the smell and keep and pets safe. I did notice that one night when the fires just started that in the morning my keyboard and mouse had a thin layer of ash because I forgot to close the window that night. Was pretty nasty stuff.

GOINGINTOFIRELIONSMOUTHGOINGINTOFIRELIONSMOUTH.

All these fires started on Sunday.

Wow, in that case it's really amazing how quickly they've spread.

Santa Ana winds do that. They blow hot embers all over the place and start more fires.

They're stronger than usual this year and are lasting for a longer period as well.

OK, maybe the situation for me is not as good as I had hoped for. Before school today, there was not a hint of smoke, and poof, after school there's a great pillar of smoke rising from the southwest (Excuse me if I'm wrong, looks to be in the direction of Temecula/Escondido).

Pretty scary.

Comeon Avenger!
Save LA!

<sniped image>

B&

I don't think banned is appropriate. I got a mild chuckle. It was in bad taste though. You might want to wait on those types of jokes until AFTER we know that our members and their families are all ok.