31 Comments

Goodness Tom! Sad and horrifying news. May rain come sooner rather than later but not mudslides. Thank you for the uodate.

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As an Altadena fire survivor who lost everything, I got the notice when the Hughes fire was 50 acres. While looking at a house in Temple city to get us through for the years it will take to rebuild, it had grown to 5,000 acres by the time we left. Please, all friends out there, keep your fingers crossed for Linda and me. It's tough enough, without counting the pocesses and fire hoops to jump through. Thank you to Karen Bass for organizing, within 48 hours, before she returned from an economic mission to Africe, an incredible disaster relief center with her staff shepherding all of those in need to the appropriate resources. We are supposed to get rain by Saturday. We are on a debris flow alert also.

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I am so very sorry for your loss!😢

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I am so sorry for your loss. I am afraid that some of these fires are being set. They can't all be spontaneous combustion.

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You don't understand Southern California ecology and the Santa Anas.

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Fire has always been part of the ecosystem in both Northern and Southern California. The Native American people there knew how to do controlled burning to keep potential fires checked, and some plants require fire in order to germinate. That being said, this fire is worsened by climate change.

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Any spark can become a conflagration in a nanosecond

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Oh, so so sorry.

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So much worse than hurricane damage. But all disasters need the response teams that can support those affected. W paid a price for “Brownie,” hope sanity prevails in CA

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Praying for rain. But not too much.

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Exactly right.

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Thank you TC, The smoke pics are terrifying. Glad the planes and copters could still fly. Hoping the rain is enough to stop fire but not enough to make mud slides! Wow! This goes on and on.

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Take care.

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Thanks for this, TC. That's my former home, the place where our girls grew up. The ranches where they learned to ride, the wash where I road my horse, the road I cycled, leading out of the SCV and past the San Francisquito Dam site...Praying for all those in the path, and for the horses and critters...

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Animals are so at risk…

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Good grief Tom, as though Los Angeles County hasn't had enough already. Are you (residents of Los Angeles County getting enough help. It's a good thing Insurance Commissioner Lara put those regulations in place that insurance renewals cannot be denied nor claims refused.

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Plenty of help - fire departments from AZ, NV, OR, WA, Canada and Mexico

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Glad to hear that. Good to know we still have friends, just not in DC anymore

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OMG. 💔

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Shit. Safety for all of you, please. This year has already been a nightmare and it's less than a month old.

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Thanks for the update, Tom. I remember many years ago reading John McPhee on the relationship between brushfires--as they were then--and "mudslides" (which as you know, but your readers may not) can involve boulders the size if pickup trucks. Scary!

Fingers are crossed.

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I’m a northern Californian and my heart is breaking! Will these fires never end?

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Your final paragraph is reassuring to your friends here. In coastal San Diego, humidity has increased from 18% this morning to 31% this afternoon, light wind from offshore, due west. I'll not be holding my breath regarding hopes for rain here this weekend. I've experienced too many rain forecasts that never came to be, at least here on the coast.

However, just checked Weather Underground and Ramona (50 or so miles east of the coast) has been very warm, with NE wind at 10, and 4% humidity (dew point is, lol, minus 5F). Perfect ignition weather if we can make it to the weekend when possible rain and even snow in the mountains is being hopefully projected.

Winds tomorrow in the Ramona area are forecast to be 25-35 mph from ENE with occasional gusts to 50 mph. Lots of canyons including the San Diego River Gorge which is far more impressive than most San Diegans can imagine; the 2003 Cedar Fire blew up the gorge almost to Julian when the Santa Ana winds died and winds picked up from offshore. Non-Californians have absolutely no concept of conditions and circumstances that make most parts of the state so vulnerable to wildfire.

I recently thought about a book I read many years ago. Titled "Fire", by George R. Stewart, the novel traces the hidden sparks from a lightning bolt creeping along beneath decades of dead leaves and pine needles before finally erupting into flames, igniting a massive wild fire.

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Good grief, how you are surviving this stress and everything going on with the current POTUS is beyond me! Stay safe and strong!

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God be with you.

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Stay safe, Tom.

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So wish could send some of our blizzard your way. All the best.

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