City on Fire

Southern California is burning. Wildfires are a regular occurrence every summer, but this is the worst fire season we've ever had and it's very late in the season for fires as well.

The fires are still far away (so far!) from my neighborhood in Hollywood, but the air is choking with acrid brown smoke. All the cars are covered with a thin layer of white ash. Residents of Los Angeles and the surrounding counties have been advised to stay indoors, close the windows and turn on the air conditioner to filter out some of the particulate matter in the air. It's horrible. The smell of burning is everywhere. The sunset was bloody orange -- beautiful and sickening.

Worst of all, my dear friends Randy and Heather may lose their home to the Simi Valley fire. The fire started heading their way on Sunday and started getting closer late last night and early this morning. Randy called me this morning and asked me to sub his class at UCLA today. He wanted to stay with the family as long as possible and get packed up and ready to go should the call come to evacuate.

That call came at about noon today. They left the home and got a hotel room not too far from their neighborhood. Randy had to go back to the house for a few minutes in the early evening because he forgot his medicine....and the digital projector! :-)

He said his neighborhood was like hell on earth. Everything was glowing red and there was smoke and ash everywhere. Luckily the fire had not come too close to the house at that time (that was about 6pm), but the firemen only gave him five minutes to get his medicine and get out of the neighborhood.

They are staying in the hotel with the baby and Chukka the dog. The cats are staying with Heidi in Santa Clarita. Randy will not go to work again tomorrow -- he can't until he's sure his family is safe and secure. Hopefully they will know by tomorrow if the house will be OK or not. If not, they will start looking for an apartment to stay in long term. They can't stay in the same hotel on Tuesday night because all the rooms are reserved. So I don't know where they will go Tues if they can't go home. It's a pretty shitty situation, but they are staying as calm as possible about it. Not much else they can do.

I've been watching on TV and the fire is still threatening their neighborhood. The TV reporters have been on the hill behind Randy's house all day, but will be moving soon so the fire department can prepare for the iminent arrival of the flames. We used to go for walks up that hill to play ball with the dog. It's so weird to think that space will soon be consumed by a raging inferno.

Updates to follow....