I travel a lot on business, and at some point in my meetings the topic inevitably turns to the various regions of the country in which we live. When I mention Iive in Los Angeles, someone always asks about earthquakes. “Aren’t you afraid of the shaking?” they ask. Truth is, LA is known for its disasters. From the quakes to the surf to the smog, everyone thinks we’re one step away from Armageddon. But ask a resident of SoCal what disaster they fear most and you’ll get one answer: wildfires.

As the local water board loves to remind us, Southern California is a desert. The end of summer brings the Santa Ana winds that rush out of the mountains that line the northern edge of the Los Angeles basin, dry devil breezes that all too often carry the aroma of burning brush – sure signs that a wildfire is nearby. The fires themselves are as predictable as the winds that carry them along, but while you can prepare for them you never know exactly when and where they’ll strike.

Right now, there’s a series of fires burning uncontrolled in SoCal mountains. The largest of those, dubbed the “Station Fire,” is a mammoth brute that’s been burning since the middle of last week. It’s grown to over 122,000 acres – to put that in perspective, the fire line is over 75 miles long, and the burn area is larger than the city of Chicago. They think it’ll take another week just to get a line around it – assuming it doesn’t reach the homes that ring the fire first.

It’s eerie. Yesterday, I could look north from the Home Office and see the fires burning on the opposite side of the basin. Tonight, as I look up, I can see the smoke blowing overhead as the wind has changed. I assume we’ll be seeing ash fallout here soon.  All over the radio are creepy commercials from the various insurance companies, reminding their policy holders how much they care.  Right – just like you did after Northridge,

One of the challenges of living on the margin between civilization and nature is that sometimes nature bites back. God bless the hard working firefighters who put their lives on the line to protect the rest of us – particularly the two who have already paid the ultimate price for our safety.

UPDATE: This is why fire scares me far more than earthquakes, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times: