Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005 - 12:57 a.m.

It is bizarre to stand outside your house and watch fire creep closer, especially one as huge as the one currently burning 3 - 6 miles away from where I live.

It doesn't look half so impressive in this picture, but believe me, it is. It stretches easily across 10 or 12 miles, and that's just the part of it we can see. On the left side there, you have the vicinity of the 101 and Valley Circle, which is about 3 miles down the 101 from Topanga Canyon, the main North-South thoroughfare near the house. On the right end, you're looking toward the north end of DeSoto, or past it, to the north end of Winnetka, the next exit to the east from DeSoto. To put the size of it in perspective, that bright set of lights in the bottom righthand corner of the image is Warner Center, a huge office complex taking up at least 4 square blocks a mile north of the house. The bluish strip of lights contains the AIG building at the corner of Canoga & Erwin, I think it is. That's a 20 story building, and it's only part of the strip. So yeah, that's large. And it's only a mile away. Imagine, now, how big that fire is.

The entire neighborhood was out watching it, until around 10, but I'd say that's to be expected. Putting aside all the excitement of being this close to a freaking huge fire, we live in a big honkin' dry tinderbox of a fishbowl here, and while 6 miles sounds nice and safe, frankly, when I can see 100+ foot tall flames leaping into the sky, and easily see detail in the sheet of it, it's enough to make you go "huh" and start thinking about what you want to move into your car.

It started around 4 this morning, and when I got up at 6am, it was 20% contained. By 10, it was 50% contained. I took a nap at noon, and when I woke up at 2:30, it had suddenly exploded in the Santa Ana winds and was much bigger and only 5% contained, which is what it stayed at all day. Luckily, at night around here the wind drops down to near non-existence, so hopefully the firefighters have gotten a handle on it and by daybreak, it'll be under control. Because day will bring the Santa Anas again, and then you've got trouble. Just figures that all the humidity and cool temps we were having took off yesterday, just in time to really help with this.

Anyway, for the moment, we're safe on this side of the Valley and will probably stay that way.

Have I mentioned I was very disappointed in tonight's episode of Criminal Minds? :( Invasion was better though; I have to say, I'm curious. I have Veronica Mars on dvr, and tomorrow we finally get to find out what happened after the single most dramatic cliffhanger ever, on Alias. :)

Peace out,
Katie

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