Re: Jen's comment

If you read the comments, you'll see that Jen asked some questions re: the SoCal fires. So, here're the answers.

The Pepperdine kid is doing fine (D--feel free to correct me when you read this). As far as I know, none of his friends lost their homes entirely, although several were evacuated and some will have to deal with smoke and water damage. But, the Malibu fire is old news, and I think the worst is past there.

The fires in San Diego are another story. I was living in San Clemente in 2003 when the last batch of fires went through. That year 3,640 homes burned down. According to the article I read this morning, we've seen 1,200 homes burned so far in SoCal this week, but the number is rising quickly. Many of the neighborhoods burning in San Diego are the same ones that burned down four years ago. I think that more acreage has burned/will burn this year than '03, but alot of it is national forest and other wilderness. The rangers I've heard interviewed have said that those fires are good for the environment in the long run.

In the San Bernadino mountains, northeast of LA, fires around Lake Arrowhead are taking out mountain communities rapidly. Two bits of good news: Green Valley Lake, where friends of mine have a mountain home, has lost only 80 of 1200 homes. I don't know if their home is OK, but I'm trusting that they are on the positive side of that stat. If you go digging through my blog, you'll find a photo or two of Green Valley Lake from when Patrice and I spent a weekend there in October 2005. The other tiny bit of good news is that many of the houses in these mountains are second homes. While it is still a tragedy to lose a precious refuge, many fire victims are not losing their primary residence. This is only true for these fires. In San Diego, people are losing their homes, often for the second time in 4 years.

So, for those of you not in California, that's the update. Most weather reporters around here just shrug their shoulders and remind listeners that this has happened before and will happen again. It's the natural result of living in super-dry grasslands with seasonal heavy winds. The same fires would race through when the native Americans lived here. It doesn't make it any easier to lose one's home, but it should be expected in certain areas. Firefighters are doing their best, but there's not much they can do. Apparently, when flames top eight feet, all water or fire retardent evaporates before it can help the situation. When you see photos of itty-bitty fire trucks against walls of flame, you realize that these flames are WAY over eight feet.

One last note, some analysts are comparing this disaster situation to Katrina, which is a little tricky. There are so many differences. What is interesting is the same attidue among old timers: "I lived through this the last four times it happened, I'll live through this one too. No need to evacuate."

Then they die.

Also in (a probably inappropriate) comparison, Californians are being praised for the population's general emergency readiness. It seems most families really do have emergency rations and escape plans ready. Wildfires and earthquakes don't give you much time to prepare last minute. Many people reported that shifting winds turned their homes from safe-and-not-in-an-evacuation-zone to smoke and ashes in 20 minutes.

That's probably more than any of you wanted. So I'll stop.