San Diego area fires

[Joe Siegler]

Do we have any regulars on the forums that are in that area? Hopefully everyone is OK.

[JeremyGritton]

I'm not in San Diego, but there's fires raging all across Southern California including Irvine, where my wife and I live.

It all started Saturday night when the winds were picking up to ridiculous speeds. We're originally from Florida, and these were like hurricane strength winds. I didn't really think too much of it, though.

Sunday morning the winds were still howling all day. We decided to stay indoors. Later, We were watching the news around dinner time, and they were talking about the fires in Malibu, Canyon Country, and San Diego. THe winds have been spreading the embers and causing the fires to go out of control. Then, a blurb came up about a new fire that just started in Irvine by Santiago Road.

Curious to see how close that was to our home, I looked it up online and discovered the fire was only 3 miles away! We decided to take precautionary measure by loading up the car with important belongings just in case. Other people in our complex were running out to their cars loading them up as well.

Within an hour the news said that the fire had spread tremendously. We decided to go outside to take a look. To our surprise, not only could we see the smoke, we could see two huge fires blazing to the north and west of us, approximately a mile away.

People started evacuating and it was general chaos as there were also mandatory evacuations in two communities right down the road from us.

Firefighters decided to make their stand on the road I live on. My wife and I both stayed up late and got up throughout the night to follow the progress. By about 2 am, they appeared to have beaten back the fires and they were out in our area. However, they are still fighting them in Irvine.

The roads around our apartment complex are closed, and the air is filled with smoke. The sky is just blotted out with smoke. The firefigthers on the news say this could continue for a few days.

The news announced this morning that the Irvines fires were started by Arson - I can only hope they catch who started it.

[Nessus]

Wow, this is terrible. Someone just told me the winds were up to 100mph, is that even possible without a major storm? And you say you heard it was Arson huh, reminds me of Greece. They said it was arson there too, over 100 fires, I think they caught them but the story disappeared from the news and I never heard what happened. Hopefully it wont be near as bad here.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Wow, this is terrible. Someone just told me the winds were up to 100mph, is that even possible without a major storm?

Obviously you've never been to Lubbock, TX.

[Nessus]

Obviously you've never been to Lubbock, TX.


Nope just Dallas Ft. Worth. I always thought that type of wind would be 50 or 60 tops, I never imagined you could have 100mph without a hurricane, tornado or major storm type of situation.

[JeremyGritton]

Well, we're still not out of it in Irvine. The Santiago Fire, which looked to be dying down this morning, has since doubled in size. The two communities about a mile East of us are having voluntary evacuations (and in some cases, mandatory)

So now we've had fires and evacuations to the West, North, and East of us. It's like the fire is growing in an arc that has gone around us... I'm just hoping that they are able to contain it by tomorrow before there is further damage.

[Hyperactive Slob]

Well I live in San Diego in summers but all my relatives and friends there had to evacuate the areas they lived in and If I'm correct my aunt's house has burned to the the ground.

[Destroyer]

well im in the central valley and im glad the wind is blowing the smoke towards the ocean and not into the valley like it normally does. makes the valley a really horrible place to live when theres a large fire because the smoke comes here and gets trapped.
but yes the fires in CA are crazy try to look for a sattelite image it seems the entire southwest part of CA is on fire.

i think this is it
http://www.southbaymobilization.org/newsroom/earth/03.1027.SatelliteViewOfCalifornia.jpg

[Commando Nukem]

I was following this all night. Im up in washington so its not a personal threat to me at all, but it does worry me to see a quarter of one of our largest states ablaze... Are there any casualties in all of this or is everyone okay thus far?

[Destroyer]

i dont think so. but i think lots of homes have burned down.

[Water12356]

I just checked with my friend Samantha and she isnt close to the fires thank god. (her mom is about an hour and a half away from them)

I hope anyone else who lives in cali is ok.

[Commando Nukem]

One of the latest news headlines is

"Firefighters admit defeat to unstoppable force."

What the Hell man? I understand they're understaffed, but are you telling me they are actually saying "We're defeated" ?! This is their damn job, they better pull it together and get it under control. I cannot believe we would let a whole state BURN like this. 300 more firefighters are coming from Washington and Oregan and should be there sometimes tommorow. The President is gonna visit Cali sometime within the next day or so.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

It's the wind pushing embers over long distances combined with dry conditions.

[Destroyer]

Are there any casualties in all of this or is everyone okay thus far?

It apears 40+ people have been injured and 6 have died.
350K+ acres have burned and still not under control
and 1 million people are evacauting.

wow this is a pretty serious fire, nothing like what we normally have.

[Joe Siegler]

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/southern-california-fire-maps.html

Fire maps.

This is not a thread about Iraq & conspiracy theories. Sigh. Those kind of things are the precise reason General Msgs went away for awhile. Don't go there again.

[SonnyBonds]

Pictures of the fire.. check out the ad at the top of the page!

http://photos.signonsandiego.com/gallery1.5/sandiegocountywildfires/fire3

[HazMat]

That is shocking. I hope they get the fires out soon before too many people become homeless. just the other night i was up late and one of those evangelicalism shows was on and the remote was too far away so i listened while working at the desk. Anyways they speaker was reading text from the good book about the earth shacking in lands where men beat their women. the speaker hinted over and over again that the reason the middle east suffered so many recent earthquakes is because the men there beat their wifes. So tonight I am going to watch the same show and maybe the speaker will tell us why these fires are happening.

[SonnyBonds]

Seems they changed the ad now but here is a screenshot from earlier today -

http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w252/SonnyB73/ad.jpg

[Telee]

Hope they get this together ASAP.

[Nessus]

So they say 1 million people have evacuated. Where have they all gone? That's 20 stadiums full of people, whats the situation like over there?

[Damien_Azreal]

My brother, he's a sales rep for a government defense contractor that's based out of that area.
A lady he knows pretty well down there... she lost everything. Her home, car all her stuff. All she has is what she's wearing, a suit and her company car.

But because she lost her phone in the fire, she wasn't able to check in with her job for the past few days. So the company started her termination papers. :eek: She's scared shitless she's gonna loose her job... which means she would loose her company car and insurance.
So she's trying to fight that.

And my brother, me and Bon and a few other people are trying to put together a care package for her.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Not intentionally trying to sound cold hearted here, but thats kind of her fault. She had a car, she could have driven to work to tell them. She could have used a pay phone / bought a phone card. It isn't that difficult.

Also the only insurance she would loose is health insurance, not homeowner or car insurance.

[Damien_Azreal]

Well, health insurance was what I was referring to.

Also, the job was over an hour from her home and she was taking care of her children, single mother, and trying to help others in her area.
Also, she was moved to a shelter after she was evacuated.

And her job... you can't call them from public phones. It's a government job... you use the company phone to call.

[Destroyer]

This is not a thread about Iraq & conspiracy theories.
whos talking about that joe?


and Wow it seems all of the San diego area is on fire.
this really sucks I cant imagine having to just leave everything behind.

[Sang]

Saw a satellite photo in the newspaper today and it showed a HUGE wail of smoke coming from California.. I was thinking "HOLY COW, that's one big wail of smoke"

[peoplessi]

70 Finnish families have also been evacuated from the San Diego area.