California Fires

Anaheim Hills, Yorba Linda... burning. The Santiago Canyon always gets the worst of it, whatever the current "it" happens to be. Traffic. Wind. Rain. Fire. Today it's fire.

Fire danger has become a year round thing in California because we've had so little rain over the last few years. Humidity 4%. Record heat. Wind gusting. Perfect for arson.

This fire started at Green River and the 91 freeway. Green River is a golf course adjacent to the freeway. I've seen that golf course washed away with flooding, leaving only some trees that had become islands hanging onto their dirt with their roots. I've never seen it burn.

14,000 people evacuated. I don't know where they will go. I've never seen so many freeways closed. Los Angeles is cut off from Northern California, strangled at the Newhall Pass because of the massive fires in Los Angeles. The Antelope Valley is cut off from LA. Thousands of cars that would normally take the 5 freeway were, instead, using our poor two lane highway. I know because I can see them from my window. Highway 138 runs a half mile down hill from us. Solid traffic. They're trying to make their way to the 15 freeway which runs east of LA, heading for San Bernardino. The 15 gets major traffic because it is the route from Southern California to Las Vegas. If 5 had closed on a Sunday, the folks going south would have face even more traffic.

The Orange County fires in Santiago Canyon have taken many homes. One small ranch has existed next to the freeway for my whole life. I'm old enough to remember when the canyon was a two lane road, then four lane, and then the freeway. That ranch has been there through all the changes. The reporters say now that it burned today. An oasis of country near the crossroads of two freeways...the 91 and the 241 tole road. Gone.

There are reports that tile roofs had not been effective against the flames. Cement buildings are also going, so they report. I'm hoping those cement buildings were not at Savi Ranch. Savi is four sections of commerce and industrial buildings. I used to work for a company whose offices are there. Two co-workers lived in today's fire areas of Yorba Linda and Anaheim Hills.

For hours now, the 57, 91, 241 have all been closed. That cuts off the coastal area from the Inland Empire. Southern California cut into quarters, each isolated from the other.

Here in Pinon Hills... on the "wrong" side of the mountains, we have no wind. At noon it was 68 degrees in my livingroom, yet 70 miles away their night time low was 72.

Except for the constant line of cars down our two lane highway, you wouldn't know that so many were facing a catastrophe. Dirt road alternatives took me to the Post Office at noon. As I stood waiting for the mail to be put up in the boxes, locals would arrive and ask me, as I was the only other one there, what was up with the traffic. We're rural. A great many of our population evidently doesn't listen to the news. Independent sorts that must not care if LA is there or not. No news is good news.