California Wildfires from a Californian

Readers,

As the well informed watch the news and hear tidbits of information about the wildfires in California. Let me try and paint a picture of what is going on and how it is effecting a Californian’s daily life.

California has about 2 different seasons. 1. HOT. 2. HOT and DRY there is no such thing as snow, rain, fall, or spring. The perfect weather for a wildfire.

Starting in autumn and leading into early winter, “the Santa Ana” winds are dry and can blow up to 60 mph. This is one of the main causes of why the wildfire to spread so rapidly.

As a point of reference, our office is in the City of Industry (in the east side of the Los Angeles Country) and it is literally about 40 to 50 miles from any wildfire. So, from the wildfires in Malibu, Irvine, or San Bernardino we are right smack in the middle of the majority of the fires.

1. Smoke (20% visibility). The most obvious effect that all Southern Californians is the smell of smoke (not smog…well it’s there too, but it’s amazing how unnoticeable smog is when you’ve lived in So. Cal ). It smells like someone is having one HUGE bonfire and it must be a nightmare for asthmatics.

2. Ash (80% visibility). Well, there is a total of 470,000+ acres of burning brush and houses and after 5 days of wildfires the air is filled with ash. Pretty constantly there is a small film of white dust that floats in the air and collects on your car or settles on anything outside. Just so you know, in So. Cal, it’s weird to have falling white particles in the air.

3. Amber (100% of natural light). There is an amber/brown haze outside. It almost feels like the sun is radiating an especially weird glow of brown. If we did not have science and technology, some people would be classifying this event as our apocalypse.

4. Television (6 hours of coverage per television station). Unless there is a major television show on a prime time network, there has been non-stop coverage about the wildfires. Those poor field reporters not only risk their lives being out there, but they also hideous looking wind breakers and hats that are not even studio provided. Can’t studio executives provide them with some studio issued gear?

Last Words. Our local news coverage has been investigating the possibility that some of the wildfires are acts of arson. It’s sad that people in Southern California would think of committing arson that would destroy homes, changes lives, and in the worse case lead to death.

However, in times of desperation (especially with the real estate problems and the state of the economy) it’s not that far fetched to believe that people would do such things believing that they might “reset” their lives in hopes for a better life. This is not an excuse, but we all know that sometimes life seems more unbearable than it should be.

Help out the victims of the recent wildfires in Southern California. As Californians, our thoughts go out to those who lost their homes and loved ones.