wow!
I saw something about that on headline news. My bro lives in San Diego... I don't think he'll have a problem, but that much smoke certainly sucks the big one!
Cool pictures though. :-)
What is your area like? Dense population? Country Homes? Near a park/forrest/reserve/preserve? There look to be a few sides to this fire. Be carefull man, and I hope your home makes it through!
What's up with California always having fires?
Well, I'm not certain, but a lot of our state legislature is for wildlife preservation, which means there are a lot less controlled burns. When I was little there were some HUGE fires in Northern Cal and Souther Cal, but they were some what contained in part to controlled burns. Recently it seems that controlled burns are becomming less and less used, either for habitat preservation, or from ignorance to a natural environments tendancy to burn every few years. ;-) It's ok though... I'm surrounded by vineyards and open fields or dirt. We could burn up, but I doubt it would happen so easily in Napa, Cali. (northern cal)
But, to answer the question; it is normal for the chaparelle biome to experience yearly fires. Humans have enhibited these fires so much to prevent larger fires that the extra brush and hot dry detritus left unburned is just eagerly awaiting a burn to come through and clean up the land. All this extra material makes for quite a firestorm!
//I was on a forum when an earthquake hit my area a few years back. I was just reading, but I figured it would be cool to post as the earthquake was passing through, so I did. My post said "Earthquake..." and the matter cointained "...which I am currrently experiencing as I post this." It wasn't serious or anything, but stuff was bouncing a little bit. It was surreal!
