I’ve been following the wildfires here in Southern California on TV and online since early Sunday morning. Many friends and colleagues displaced, or about to be. Many fires in many different parts of the state, I can’t recall this many separate blazes all at once for a long time. Link to NASA images of the wildfires from space.
More resources: San Diego Union Tribune fire blog, LA area fires with google maps, SD fires with google maps, KPBS on twitter, Red Cross “Safe and Well” list.
Jerry Sheehan is aggregating blog coverage here: Link. Sam Coniglio is among many who shot images of the orange-red sunsets this phenomenon generated: Link.
Jacob Riskin has posted some data on the Topanga fires: Link.
BB reader Barry says,
I have a few friends that were evacuated from the San Diego fires. It’s now become the largest evacuation in the U.S. since Katrina. I posted a bunch of charities and local resources here: Link.
Emese G. says,
The link is to an interactive map of the San Diego Fires and evacuation areas from Google. It’s surprising to see emergency web sites go down when they’re needed the most. The county’s emergency web site has been on and off for the last day now. KPBS and Channel 8 News
have kept up by limiting their pages to essential information. KPBS even has a twitter, On the other hand, the Union Tribune’s site keeps going offline and is unreliable. Craig’slist has people offering to help including offering up their homes for pets and people.
(Thanks, Yannick Rendu, Jed, Michael McCarty and others)
Update: Serial tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson says:
I live in San Diego and the situation is unbelievable. 80% of my employees have been evacuated from their homes. The entire North half of the county is shrouded in a thick eye burning shroud of smoke. That’s what happens when 200,000 acres burn. Wild fires are being pushed by scorching off shore gusting winds with speeds of 60 miles an hour in some places. Less than 5 percent humidity and two inches of rain the last year don’t help.
They are predicting 36 more hours of the winds. Thankfully only a couple fatalities but 600 homes and offices have been burned down already.
I have family staying with me where i have no power but am relatively safe because i am close to ocean. But news reports just said we should evacuate. (We won’t cause there’s really no place to go.)
There are fires throughout Southern Ca but those in SD are more severe from what i can tell in spite of the fact that the national press is fixated on star studded Malibu.
Lots of links to more resources and first-person accounts in the comments.
In other news, CNN’s Glenn Beck is a big fat douche. Link.
Below: Photo of LACD Fire Camp 9 taken from Kagel Mountain with the Buckweed Fire in the background, by Michael McCarty.
