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10/23/2007: "Welcome To The Mouth Of Hell"

This month's issue of Los Angeles Magazine has a cover article reminding Angelinos that while we're known for the quakes and the riots, it's the wildfires we need to look out for. They included a blow-by-blow description of last spring's Griffith Park fire, and just how close it came to taking out both homes and people. It seemed like an appropriate article as we started into fire season in SoCal. Little did they know just how appropriate ...

It's hard to describe just how bad it is right now. The numbers are staggering: Thousands of homes lost, hundreds of thousands of acres burned, nearly a million people displaced from their homes - including 1 in 6 residents of San Diego County. Resources are stretched so thin that some of the new fires burn for hours before they can be fought - often giving them the time they need to establish into a monster. We've got that trifecta going - hot weather, dry lands and Santa Ana winds - and now we're paying the price in spades.

You can't say enough about the people who fight these fires, and I only wish there were more. that's the real problem right now - not enough trucks, planes and people. Earlier I was watching a self-serving politician complain that his region wasn't getting the resources it needed to fight the fires there, and how as a policy maker he was going to make sure that those responsible for not providing those resources would be held accountable. That's the problem, though - he's perfectly willing to cry for the resources now, but what do you think would have happened if someone would have presented the plan for acquiring those resources to him last year - along with what they would cost? Damned right - it'd never make it through. No one seems willing to take the steps when they need to be taken, whether it's funding the needed resources or clearing the brush around their homes or making sure they have a full inventory of their belongings and an evacuation plan should they have to flee. But they all seem to find the news crew microphones just fine ...

The Home Office is in one of the few regions of SoCal where it's not burning, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula - the only real burnable space nearby - is safe for now. But even though we're at least 25 miles from the nearest fire, there's a constant rain of ash falling here. It looks like snow, but I wouldn't recommend letting the flakes land on your tongue.

We're looking at another couple of days of hot weather and wind, and this could still get worse. Stay tuned ...