Fire Update: 5:49 p.m., 30 August 2009

OK, we're fine, but this thing is whipping up something fierce. If you look at the map above, we're located directly across from the Rancho Vista golf course in the nearby foothills--we are to the right of Warwick Park, by about 3 miles. The yellow area is the area within which they are trying to contain the fire. The red area, which is a couple hours old, is where the fire was---it has progressed into a third of the yellow area.

The Mt Wilson area has some bad news: Atop Mt. Wilson is the entire Los Angeles communication center---towers for every television and radio station and much of the telephone transmission centers, as well as the "repeater" transmission towers for the emergency notification system. The fire fighting arsenal has been pulled off the Mt. Wilson lines due to extreme safety hazards to crews. Unless the direction, heat and intensity change, fire officials expect Mt. Wilson to be extensively damaged.

The backyard pictures are from our house, the horse and trailer photo from the Acton foothills (Courtesy KNX).

As dusk is about two hours from now, the Night Shift of the fire fighting efforts is moving into place. That means the pictures we show of the air arsenal are the last of the day shift flights. The larger airplanes cannot fly at night, and the time between now and dusk is largely the purview of water-dropping helicopters and strategically positioned strike teams on the ground. With the speed, heat and wind fueling the bone-dry terrain into small infernos dotting the hillsides and ridges of the nearby mountains, the fire fighting equipment and personnel is definitely inadequate to keep this fire from moving closer to us. We need a major wind shift. Or as they say in Hollywood, some "good" Force Majeure!