I am very exhausted right now but let's say that those fires you keep reading/hearing about SoCal (South California) have been actually not only "everywhere" but i got some in the area where I live. In fact, I packed the essentials on Monday because I thought there was a nice chance I had to evacuate.
Just like 4-6 miles north, from my own balcony, there are some hills and I watched in the night how those caught on fire and it just burned them to a crisp. It was just surreal... like walking into the Land of Mordor where the One Ring was forged or something. It was almost like someone poured lava onto the mountain as if it was some chocolate syrup. Earlier on there was a fire a mere 2 miles north from my house.. and that gave me the "fight or flight" response for a second... but it was put out.
So what's going on in SoCal? Apparently some winds called "the Santa Ana winds" which apparently make their appearance about this time of the year, have been blowing quite strong. How strong? I am pretty sure it was blowing here between 30 and 40 MPH and probably gusts up to 55 MPH if I had to make an estimate from previous hurricane experience.
Some places reported literally gusts up to 80-100 MPH! That's a hurricane wind force category 1 right there- except the sky is as clear as glass which is in a way, mighty eerie... And this has been going on since Sunday night/Monday morning and it's expected to *finally* die tomorrow Tuesday night.
I have never ever seen winds these strong, and those winds have knocked some power lines which have kicked the fires in.. and then the fires spread *really fast* due to these winds. Just today I was helping a friend (an ex?) to move his stuff that he rents for his college student needs and we saw another fire show up in Val Verde which may have gone by now all the way down to his place (we just don't know- Val Verde is a small town up north and reports have been very sporadic on it).
I have decided to post a couple of shots from last night (Monday night) as seen from my balcony but zoomed in, and some shots captured today with my friend as he was in his rented house looking for stuff to get to his car just in case.
Then I also called my long time ex-friend that lives in San Diego- which incidentally is going through fire hell right now. He told me he is safe for now but he is "caught" between two areas that have fire.. region-wise. I hope it never gets to where he is...
All in all a big milestone this week at work while we just moved from North Hollywood to a really nice place in Burbank.. but ... this all has me very exhausted....
Can you believe this?
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