<p>Also, for those who haven’t seen it yet, on the LA Times main website there is an interactive google map with the locations of all of the fires. It is a good way to see what fires are close to what cities.</p>
<p>I live in Lakewood (just outside Long Beach, which is just outside LA) and everything’s quiet here so far…lots of smoke and the whole sky is gray, and I believe my school may be shutting down PE for a while (or keeping with indoor sports) due to the heavily polluted atmosphere.</p>
<p>The problem we’re facing is that we simply don’t have enough resources. The last I heard, a lot of the firefighters are spraying retardant to keep the fire from spreading, then just letting it burn, because we just don’t have the resources to put this many fires (especially when they’re so close together) out.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exactly the problem the mountain is having. The fire went from 5% containment to 0%, and there are a few angry people being interviewed who have watched their neighborhoods burn without a firefighter in sight. They’re dropping retardant with the DC-10, but it looks like they’re reallocating resources to deal with the bigger fires threatening more people. </p>
<p>To top it all off, there is apparently a group of looters running around breaking into homes evacuated but not currently threatened, and an arsonist starting fires in the non-burning areas.</p>
<p>Sigh.</p>
<p>Ugh…that’s awful. I can’t believe how much people take advantage of others. 
I’m sorry that’s happening, and my thoughts/prayers are with all of you dealing with the fires (I want this dealt with as quickly as anyone; all this smoke in the air is making me really sick ((I have bad asthma))).</p>
<p>Orange county, San Diego and Arrowhead/Running Springs have gone from bad to worse. The conditions are preventing the air resources from flying now. Meanwhile, Malibu is saved. This happens almost annually. Lots of resources being put to fighting fire in the Malibu canyons, which naturally burn. Just goes to show that expensive houses, famous people and $$$ get the resources time and again. Three years ago, a “blue ribbon panel and report” outlined what equipment was needed to handle just the situation we have today. This entire scenario was predictable. All the conditions were known. This afternoon, the OC fire chief said that had they had the air resources yesterday, as outlined in the report 3 years ago, they might have been able to save Mojeska Canyon; same is true up in Running Springs and possibly in San Diego. But, we did not have the legislative will to make it happen here in California. First it is levies, then it is bridges, now fires. Yet we keep hearing how we need to fund priorities first. Meanwhile we are spending billions overseas in that quagmire. I just don’t get it.</p>
<p>^^ I agree that the legislature has (obviously) not provided for enough fire equipment and fire fighters, but I don’t think the actions are quite so cynical as you suggest. Malibu got saved mostly because its fires started first. That’s the way it went in 2003 too. Everyone rushes in to put out the first fires and the later ones are left with only thin defenses.</p>
<p>Here in San Diego, Rancho Santa Fe is burning up something fierce, and it’s the Beverly Hills of San Diego. The people there are as rich as those in Malibu, yet their area is burning just like the poor folks</p>
<p>I believe that Malibu is a smaller area, speaking in square mile terms. San Diego County is HUGE and there are many, many fires there.</p>
<p>Malibu is a smaller area and nearer to the ocean so there is physically less land mass to burn. As I posted before, I lived in Ramona, CA for several years. Like coureur, I don’t think the actions of saving Malibu were for economic reasons.
The scale of the SD Witch fire is almost unimaginable. There just aren’t enough resources. Hopefully fire resources from other states will arrive soon. I hear they are on the way.</p>
<p>I agree with the sentiment, however. After the fires 4-5 years ago, there was much discussion on just how to improve the response to incidents like this. Many concrete solutions were presented.</p>
<p>Apparently, none or too few were implemented. </p>
<p>Fires in Southern California are NOT a new phenomenon. Multiple fires are not new. They are a bigger danger than earthquakes, they happen frequently, and yet this is at least the second if not the third time in the past 5 years California has been caught unprepared and under-equipped.</p>
<p>How many times will it need to burn before something actually changes?</p>
<p>thanks for the updates. I just got an e-mail from my friend in Rancho SF and she’ evacuated. My friend in Laguna said that the fires are near ?? Santiago which is near enough for her to be nervous.</p>
<p>I grew up i SoCal, people think we have no seasons, but really they are:
Summer
Fire
Rain
Mudslide</p>
<p>It does seem like it would be smart to have more of a statewide plan for handling these things</p>
<p>I was listening to my local public radio station and they said that San Diego County is the only county that does not have a county wide fire department. Apparently it was disbanded a few years back in an election where the “no taxes” folks pushed a ballot initiative to eliminate it and and the costs associated. I wonder if the conservative north SD county folks are wishing they had their own county-wide fire service now. </p>
<p>As far as Malibu is concerned, I don’t begrudge people living in beautiful places, but they don’t pay any more for county fire services than the folks who live in the flat lands. It has become an entitlement that their homes will be protected annually from the fires that have been burning in those canyons since I was a kid. And by the way, the canyons that lead to Malibu stretch all the way back to the San Fernando Valley and the fires usually run thru Topanga, Malibu, Los Flores and all the other canyons. Sometimes they start inland and go thru to Malibu. The terrain is rugged and no “small” area.</p>
<p>It’s great to see such a well-equipped and well-trained National Guard ready and waiting to go.</p>
<p>I live in east LA county and the closest major fire is probably 30 miles away.</p>
<p>Ordinarily, becuase of the Santa Anas, the sky would be a clear deep blue. But it is enirtely covered in red-grey smoke and ash is falling here. It would be 97 for a high today but the sun is so blotted out that it is probably 10 degrees cooler.</p>
<p>I live below a canyon and the winds were whipping through here Sunday night at about 60-80 mph. Locally, the winds here have abated but not in other parts of Southern California. The weather is supposed to cool off and wind to die down a little bit each day but these fires are so big that it will take a long time for things to get under control.</p>
<p>A client in North San Diego was going to be evacuated to the old El Toro base in Orange County.</p>
<p>Sorry to repeat a post.</p>
<p>SDSU, USD, and UCSD are canceled all week…</p>
<p>Fires have always burned at Southern California, even before the white man came. The first Spanish explorers referred to the area as the “Bay of Smoke”.</p>
<p>Chapparal and other native plants catch fire easily and would grow as easily in the flat areas as up in the hills if the flat areas weren’t already all built out.</p>
<p>I was unaware SD Co. had disbanded its county-wide fire service.</p>
<p>That makes me incredibly angry. So many of the other fires burning are losing staff because there has been a priority on extinguishing the fires in San Diego County. To think that more people could have remained to fight the fires threatening my home, tearing apart the communities I grew up in, but for people who wanted to pay less in taxes?</p>
<p>I’m speechless.</p>
<p>How is that even possible? To disband a fire department of any variety in SoCal…</p>
<p><em>shakes her head</em></p>
<p>Well, meanwhile the fires in the mountains are picking up steam and spreading out in BOTH directions. Yeah, BOTH of them are going out in BOTH directions. This means the Slide Fire is edging closer to my house (they say it’s possible it will reach my area by the end of the night, if not sooner) as well as toward Arrowbear and Big Bear, and the Grass Fire is heading down into Crestline as well as up and around Lake Arrowhead. For geographical reference, that is almost the entire mountain as the residents conceive it. Everything but Big Bear, Arrowbear and Cedar Pines Park/Valley of Enchantment is on fire or is expected to be soon. Even the horribly devastating Old Fire in 2004 didn’t cover nearly that much property.</p>
<p>They evacuated the hospital earlier today.</p>
<p>I am grateful that there have not been reports of any more looting or arson, but am fearful it is simply because they are so understaffed that no one can keep track anymore.</p>
<p>EDIT: And as soon as I posted, a new message showed up on the incident scanner transcription confirming another looter, this one less than a mile from my house. Oh, people. :(</p>
<p>Checking in here… from Maui. We are on vacation this week (fall break for my job and our D’s high school) and are missing all of the wind and fire back home, but I just read our local newspaper online and the fire is only now moving into our county (and not threatening any homes yet, thank goodness). I can’t believe there were hurricane force winds, and I am really sad for those who lost their homes in SD and Arrowhead and Malibu. My prayers go out to all of them. I hope the worst is over, the wind dies down and that a freak rain storm (like happened 2 weekends ago!) sweeps into the area.</p>
<p>Here are today’s smoke maps:</p>
<p><a href=“NASA Earth Observatory - Newsroom”>NASA Earth Observatory - Newsroom;
<p>The Canyon Brushfire - Malibu (Update):
As of late Tuesday:
Location: Malibu
Size: 4,400 acres
Containment: 15%
Cause: Possible fallen powerlines
Evacuations:
Mandatory Evacuations for the following locations… Montenedo, Malibu Rd, Malibu Colony, Pepperdine (Shelter in Place), Malibu Crest, Serra Retreet, Big Rock</p>