San Diego Wildfires

Laurie woke me up this morning since ash was falling from the skies. Conveniently, since we've just settled in, all our cardboard boxes and wrapping paper were "stored" on the side of the house. Needless to say, I spent a good hour this morning moving boxes and enjoying the brisk outdoor smell of a campfire. After that we pretty much have had to seal up the house, and I've rigged together a makeshift airfilter in my office with a box fan and a paper air filter from Wal Mart. Who knew that having no air conditioning would bite us in the butt this quickly?

There is an absolutely huge fire (appropriately called the "Witch" fire, since it started in Witch Creek), just southeast of us 8-10 miles. Prevailing winds are west and south, a happy condition known as "Santa Ana Winds". If you didn't know, these are winds caused by a high pressure system in the desert. With nowhere else to go, the wind "pushes" down through the mountains and out towards the Pacific, in the opposite direction of the normal weather pattern. This wind is usually hot, because the air compresses as it comes down the mountains. Not good for those stuck between a honking big fire and the ocean. On the upside, the Santa Ana is fading, which everyone here seems to think is a good thing. Still, I'm not so sure, because if the regular weather patterns return, it simply means the fire will move in new directions. But then, what do I know as an transplanted midwesterner about wildfires?

According to the news, the Witch fire is a very encouragingly "0% contained". Basically, this means that they have no confidence in being able to stop it from moving in whichever direction it wants. To give you an idea, in the last 24 hours, the fire has jumped I-15, and basically moved all the way into Rancho Santa Fe. It looks like it might push to the ocean, which would be a first for San Diego. So, it sounds pretty grim right?

Well, actually it's not all bad news. First, and foremost, we are happily all fairly well safe and sound. Secondly, we had a nice period of about 8-9 hours of clean air today allowing us to air out the house, and get Lorelei some much-needed outdoor play time. All evacuation areas in Carlsbad (south Carlsbad was under a "voluntary" evacuation order this morning) have been recalled, that is, there are no standing evacuation orders for Carlsbad at the moment. Next, the Santa Ana is weakening. We'll see how much benefit that actually brings in the next couple of days. The Governator was down here today, and he did say that the Witch fire is right now the #1 firefighting priority in the state, so we should get some good attention on the firefighting front. Also, we should have plenty of warning if the fire moves in this direction as the city has been on top of alerting people to issues. Finally, from our discussions with our neighbors, most of them think the fire would have a rough time working in this direction because there isn't much brush in between here and there.

So there you have it. One likely scenario is that we wake up to an evacuation order (they do this via reverse-911 broadcasts), and have to find a way out of town. We've made arrangements with Kev and Beth in Phoenix to stop there if need be, and several of my coworkers have stepped forward and offered their homes as well (even though that might be a 6-to-1, half dozen to the other scenario). In the absolute worst case, we have to get out of the house in 5 minutes, my office burns to the ground (a scant 4 miles south), and I'm out of a job. Luckily, just this past weekend updated our insurance policies, and we still have an unsold house in Illinois if we need it. There's also an ocean right next door, so I suppose we could just go jump in there as well.

The city's slogan is "Life is rad in Carlsbad" but right now I'm thinking it's more "En fuego en San Diego" ...