SoCal on Fire

I've mentioned here before how much I love views from above. This view is sadly lacking in joy, however. The red marks on the satellite image of Southern California represent active fire areas this afternoon. And it's easy to identify the smoke flying out to sea. What's crazy to me are the plumes of dust kicked up by the gale-force winds blowing down from the desert and through narrow canyons thanks to those awful Santa Anas. Click on the link below the image to see a larger view (takes awhile to load) which you can zoom in on.

One interesting thing I heard on Nightline tonight was that they got plenty of rain down in the Southland a couple years ago so there's loads of fuel (read "shrubbery") this year for the fires to burn. One of the most dramatic videos I watched was a darkened street full of burning embers being swept away to start up more fires wherever they may land.

The area of high pressure over Salt Lake (that's causing the severe winds from the east) is supposed to diminish and move on by Wednesday so there may be some help for firefighters in getting some of the fires under control with some higher humidity levels.

That same high is giving us some pretty warm weather up here in the Bay Area as well. I hope people are being very careful with their cigarette butts and are making sure they put out their camp fires and grills.