JW is alive! I started to write a post on this yesterday but figured nobody there knew what was happening here. Well, it's hell! The 3 counties of the tri-county have a population of about 350,000 and cover 4,844 square miles. San Diego county has a population of just over 3,100,000 in 4,526 square miles. If you have ever been here, or looked at a map, you will know that we are closed in on the west by the Pacific Ocean and the south by the Mexican border. To the east are mountains and desert, to the north are Orange and Riverside Counties, both of which also have large fires going. Imagine going to bed one night knowing there is a small fire outside Edelstein. A friend of yours wakes up the next morning, in their lovely Glasford home, to find that same fire in their backyard. And the wind is blowing east, toward the city of Peoria, sometimes at a crisp, sustained speed of 70 miles per hour. People in the city of Peoria can smell the smoke. At dusk, the setting sun in the west is a blurry orange ball, if visible at all. You are uneasy knowing that all the fire fighting equipment in the city is out fighting the fires (if the house next door catches fire, as some houses do, you are out of luck). You, living near Northmoor Road and Sheridan (I threw a wad of gum at a map) start to pack up the important stuff, track down the outdoor cat, wag your finger at the kids that you are "serious" and wonder where the heck you would go, if need be. Local TV tells you that embers from the fire are as big as basketballs and can travel a mile. Fires break out here and there, just west of the airport, north of the Wildlife Prairie Park, and another within view of the Shoppes at Grand Prairie. It's too windy for an air attack, water pressure begins to drop. Fires start to burn large power towers. You are told to conserve power and water and all the schools are closed. By afternoon, officials are urging everybody to not work the next day, to keep the roads clear for emergency vehicles. Bradley students are ordered to stay on campus. Then the governor comes, gathers every local person ever elected to any office, holds a press conference, only to thank all those present for their hard work. Oh, and the president sends his regards. You learn that 15% of the people in the county have been evacuated, over 1200 homes and 300 commercial buildings have burned down, 1 is dead, 37 are in the hospital, the winds are not changing and you are told it will take a week to put out the fires now burning. But...your local professional football team has been evacuated to a nearby state so they can practice for the game this Sunday, which is in your local stadium, which is currently filled with evacuees. And worse, all the local TV stations repeat the same coverage over and over and over, all night. You don't get to watch Marie Osmond faint on Dancing With The Stars. Life sucks! I have to go blow ember residue out of my nose now. (I keep having this feeling a 7.2 quake is due any second)

Powerful post! You really put the tragedy into perspective. Saw some people interviewed on the news early this morning. Hard to imagine coming home to nothing but burnt out memories and looking down the street to see the home 3 houses down from you untouched by flames. I wonder how many evacuees the Civic Center would hold. Oh, and thanks to Gov and the Prez. Their concern is overwhelming!

My brother and his wife evacuated sunday evening before it was mandatory...My brother told us "We are not sticking around...We are gonna get the H*ll outta dodge!" We know they are safe and that is the most important thing, but I feel sick thinking that thierf home might burn up...thier little 2 bedroom condo cost over $300 K and they felt that they got a sweet deal...YIKES!!!

Some of news coverage I watched made it seem like the only real tragedy was that some celebrities might lose their multi-million dollar homes in malibu. As if it meant nothing that the common and poor would lose homes too.

UPDATE... 1. The number of those evacuated in San Diego county is now around 730,000, which is about 20% of the population. 2. In response to Mr. Collector...the majority, but not all, of the homes in danger and being destroyed are of the upwards of $750k variety, with a number in Rancho Sante Fe in the upper, single, millions. Keep in mind, tho, that a million dollar house here would sell in Peoria for 100k. 3. It was just announced that Bush is coming Thursday, bringing the new head of FEMA with him. NOW I'm going to pack. 4. All schools, k-college, are closed the rest of the week. Big businesses are being asked to cut back or take the week off too. 5. Every motel/hotel room from the boarder to the Santa Barbara County line, which is about 200 miles north, are filled. There are 20,000 doctors (and lobbyists) on airplanes right now, coming to a convention, and local hotels are now evicting evacuees so the high rollers can have a place to sleep when they get here. 6. The hills are alive....with Caterpillar bulldozers, doing the job that can't be done from the air. Yesterday, a local "official" said there were "1000 fire trucks on the way". He later recanted, and was not able to give a source. 7. We are being threatened with brown-outs or black-outs or whatever happens when too many old farts like me turn on the AC. 8. Last night, some guy went door-to-door in a trailer park, handing out official looking flyers, telling people to evacuate by 6pm, and telling them they can return at 10pm. (Long enough for him and friends to loot their homes.) He was arrested. 9. The local housing situation was starting to turn sour, with lots of new homes not being sold. Well, now they will (enter conspiracy theory here). While it is illegal in CA to raise the price of anything more than 10% during an emergency, it doesn't apply to landlords, who will make a killing renting crappy apts to the newly homeless for twice what they wanted last week. 10. Someone mentioned that this was a "forest" fire. Very little real forest is being destroyed here. This is what is called a brush fire, meaning all the weeds that managed to germinate last spring, and then died over the summer, are now on fire. another update later, unless FEMA throws me in a trailer or the lights go out

Wow, please take care of yourself. We appreciate you sharing your perspective with us humble Peorians here at a time that I'm sure you have lots on your mind! Please keep us posted and you will be in our prayers!

I spoke to a business contact who lives near L.A. yesterday and asked him if it was affecting him. His answer, in broken Chinese: "No no. I not that rich! Only rich people's houses are burning. Doctors and Lawyers live in the mountains. You no need to worry about me." I was a little surprised how flip he was about it, but I know the situation is much worse in the SD area.

UPDATE- Wed 10-24-07 11:something AM, SD time.... There are currently two major fires in SD county; the Witch Creek fire, which is on the north side of SD city and the suburbs to the north and east; and the Harris fire, which is along the US/Mexico border, partially within SD city but mostly in southern suburbs and very small towns. Stats from today's SD paper: (lifted without permission) The Witch Creek fire: (does not include rural areas) Del Dios, 20 homes lost (known as the birthplace of the Margarita) Escondido, population 141,000 - median household income, $47,000, 70 homes lost Fairbanks Ranch, population 900 - income, $174,000, several homes lost Fallbrook (part of another fire), population 48,000, income $53,000, 246 homes lost (120 of them mobile homes) Julian, population 2,700 - income $52,000, homes lost 0 (fire just reached there last nite) Palomar Mountain, some homes burned (home of the famed Palomar Observatory) Poway, population 51,000, income $73,000, at least 70 homes lost Rancho Bernardo (within SD city limits), population 45,000, income $64,000, 225 homes lost Rancho San Diego, population 7,700, income $42,907, unknown homes lost (but believed to be many) Rancho Sante Fe, population 3,000, income $197,000, 35 homes lost (most of these are mansions, not "homes") The Harris fire: (does not include rural areas) Chula Vista, population 223,000, income $54,000, homes lost 0, fire reached there late last nite San Ysidro (within the city limits of SD, along the border), population 27,000, income $24,000, homes lost 0, fire reached there late last nite. ------ According to Wikipedia, the median income for Peoria city is $36,397. ------ I live in central SD city, about 8 blocks from Balboa Park (where the zoo is). The southern edge of the Witch Creek fire is about 12 miles north, and the northern edge of the Harris fire is about 10 miles southeast. Both fires started late Sunday afternoon. If the 2 fires join up, the only way out is to swim. Monday morning, I woke to a very faint smell of smoke. I'd smelled it before, as the Cedar and Paradise fires of 10-2003 came much closer from the north and those fires were considered the "fires of all fires" "once in a century", etc. Monday afternoon, the smell was so bad I closed up the place and turned on the AC. Local bigwigs were telling people to do this on Monday, but by Tuesday were yelling at us that we were wasting electricity. I always close my bedroom door when I turn on the AC, since there is no reason to cool it during the day. I turned it off about 630pm and an hour later decided to open the bedroom door...it was like walking into a chimney. A fan in the window, blowing out, solved the problem within an hour. Monday night and all day Tuesday, there was just the faintest hint of a smoke odor. While the winds in the fire area were gusting to 70mph, where I am there wasn't even a slightest breeze. The sky to the west was blue, to the south a bit hazy and to the north, a tint of yellow. (Haze and yellow sky are pretty much normal for SD. You don't notice so much when you come to visit for a few days, but when you live here, it's very apparent.) This morning I woke to a stronger smoke smell, with all the windows closed. Fetching the morning paper, I had to hold my nose and run back inside. Still, no wind, which for us city folk is now a bad thing. The smoke is drifting our way, and settling, instead of being pushed south or east. Today, a good chunk of Camp Pendleton (Marines), which is on the north side of the city of Oceanside along the border with Orange County, is on fire. (Fallbrook, above, is northeast of Oceanside) Local TV, all 8 stations, are still covering every aspect of the fires, though I did notice that one channel was showing a soap opera (local stations can only be civic for so long, since commercials pay the bills). TV coverage is getting a bit annoying. I saw the same 2 girls giggling about their house buring down on 2 stations, minutes apart. Comparisons as to how SD is handling the fires and how New Orleans handled hurricane Katrina are everywhere. To me, it's silly, but I won't go into that. Now that things are starting to get somewhat under control, they are staking out just the right places for Bush to be photographed visiting tomorrow. I've yet to see a politican pick up a shovel and head out into the brush. On some blogs, there is a chant going up that "well, it's just Hollywood movie stars" homes burning down. Some get a great chuckle out of that. It should be noted that, the areas being destroyed by the Witch Creek fire are more red state than Utah, and the Harris fire areas aren't that far behind. One local (Peoria) blogger mentioned along the lines of "well if you choose to live there" (you deserve what you get), which is like a person living in NY telling a Peorian the same thing after the next tornado or flood. So, for the thousands of you concerned for my safety, all is well. But you can still send cash if you want.

NO JW, I would rather just come out and visit and assure myself personally of your safety