Firestorm

In just under two years of living here, this is my third or fourth large California fire. These things get more surreal with each passing event. This particular fire (the Orange County branch of a many-tiered assault on the California hills) is particularly heinous because it was started deliberately.

Apart from that, the striking feature of this fire is how close it is to Dara and I. This morning, Dara and I woke up and walked out onto the balcony, following a hint of smoke odor peeking from behind the balcony door. The smell that hit us was overwhelming. Ashes collected like snow on the hoods of cars. It's not difficult to understand why we saw so many people driving with masks and cloths over their faces.

The smoke-obscured sun was blazing crimson red through the clouds (if at all), and not until I escaped to the relative calm of North Orange County, did I get some respite from the stale, smokey air and the dark, repressive cloud. Poor Dara had to work in the smoke all day long. Fortunately, it's not as bad indoors. We've had some friends offer for us to stay with them (thanks Laird and Harrison!), but it looks like we won't have to evacuate... for now. I've been trying all night to get a good sense of where these fires are and where they're going, but the newspeople would rather wax on about the dangerous nature of fire than show us a useful
graphic depicting where the fires are. Certainly a strange night in Irvine.