I'm sure everyone is aware of the wildfires that are raging uncontrollably throughout areas of SoCal. San Diego county is being hit pretty hard by this firestorm with 250,000 evacuated from their homes.

While up here in LA County, so far 2,400 acres of the weekend motorcycling mecca of Malibu have gone up in flames. If any of you riders here ever go up PCH in Malibu than I'm sure you've seen the Castle home up in the hills. It has burned down along with a church and several homes.

The winds that are driving these fires so quickly across so much area are supposed to die down by tomorrow. So let's all hope this thing can be contained soon and that there are no further fatalities (one so far in LA county) or injuries.

cbs2.com/local/local_story_294103528.html (http://cbs2.com/local/local_story_294103528.html)

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21405632/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21405632/)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2192/1692673716_8acfa8275b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2126/1692642108_fcd1edd2f1.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2113/1687752192_42e8cc83e6.jpg

images taken from HERE (http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmeyers/tags/fire/)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2224/1697826677_58cfa538ac.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2230/1697801155_a627075a3c.jpg

and HERE (http://www.flickr.com/photos/13443564@N02/page3/)

We watched the fire jump canyons today from the office. Not the flames, but the smoke. We actually saw it move from the morning to the evening. I was going to go out tonight and snap some pics, but I'm a little too wiped out. Moto heads all across the county are shaking their heads in awe and sending prayers to Ed & Verne in hopes that the Rock Store doesn't go down in flames. This this thing is crazy, and now they're talking about those other 3 fires in the valley uniting to form one mega fire like this is some kind of Voltron or something. It's madness. And seeing places you ride all the time on the news all screwed up like that is crazy. Not quite as bad as Hurricane Andrew in '92 when it leveled Miami (my hometown) - or Katrina for you LA and MS cats out there, but it's bringing back some of the same memories. I hope all those folks and horses can get out of there alright. Yeah, I got love for horses, what can I say.

PS - if I may be a selfish ass for a minute, this fire business in Malibu makes me wish I had explored the vineyards out there and taken advantage of their wineries when I had the change. Same thing happened with Windows on the World, a kick ass restaurant on the top of the World Trade center that I never went to in the two years I was in NYC before the towers came down. Like I said, selfish. But I feel better now that I got it out. :oops:

I hear you man, it's like you don't know what you're missing until it's gone. I still have quite a bit of exploring to do in the area.

It is crazy like you said; watching it on the news and seeing the level of devastation that is occurring at a place that you frequent so often. I was just up there last week and was hoping to go riding up there again until of course I heard the news and saw on TV what was happening.

It will surely be interesting to return to those roads after this whole ordeal and see first hand the extent of the damage to the area.

I feel for you westies right now. It's crazy. And as evidenced by those
pictures the fires are both beautiful and horrific. Hope the winds die down
and you guys get a good rain. Hell, most of the country is in varying
levels of drought, including Virginia. We could all use some rain!!!
Thank God for people who are willing to be firemen/women and endanger
their lives so greatly to put out these fires and save people's homes.

The latest.

A satellite image of the fires can be found here:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/images/20071022satimage.html

The fires at the top are in the LA area. (Notice the channel islands
off the coast, which helps define where you are.) The biggest smoke
plume is the Witch Creek fire that's threatening Escondido, Ramona, et al.

You can get a lot more interesting info and maps at the San Diego
newspaper site.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/

AFAICT Claire and I still are not in any fire zone. There's a huge
smoke cloud off to the east though.

Damn! It's always on fire out there! I thought about Southern California this morning when I was driving to work in the rain. I mean, what's going out there is just so horrible!

I live in the path of the Which Creek fire but I am closer to the cost, there is a voluntary evacuation in my area so we packed up a bunch of stuff just in case we have to bug out.
________
SweetMandy live (http://camslivesexy.com/cam/SweetMandy)

Meach and Sachi, I'm glad to hear that so far, you guys haven't been in any danger. I was shocked when I learned that the number of evacuations have reached to over 500,000 down in San Diego.

I can't imagine how devastating it would be to loose your home. My thoughts are with all of you down there.

+ 1 - Humbling how little we can do against nature's wrath.

I can't imagine how devastating it would be to loose your home. My thoughts are with all of you down there.

I don't know what to say except you're in our prayers and stay safe.

this is what i saw going up to san jose on my trip on sunday off the 5 fwy in the grapevine.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/8901/img0856bf0.jpg

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7545/img0851sj6.jpg

this is what it looked like once i got back home thursday in riverside.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/9995/img0948rt2.jpg

and to make matters worse- an accident which sparked a fire on the 215 in colton took out major power lines and left riverside w/out power for about 4 hours today. talk about 300k people w/out power during a socal firestorm and i smell anarchy, hehe.