MoreCooler.com: It's more cooler with the thing

It's been one hell of a day. Just wanted to pop in and say that the Chula Vista area (Bryce and I) so far seems to be pretty safe for now -- the one fire that was threatening they think they have been able to control by burning a backfire to keep it away from all the housing around here.

The La Jolla area (Matt) is also safe as far as I know.

There's ash everywhere, though. Our cars are covered in it, and my eyes stung as I drove back home from Katie's house tonight and passed through downtown San Diego.

My brother's home is still at risk -- he and his wife are here with my niece. My sister-in-law's sister's home is even more at risk -- they were actually evacuated and a structure just down the street from her home was on fire last she knew. The only major freeway that's open right now is Interstate 5. The 67, 52, 163, 8 and 805 have all been closed in some areas all day long.

It's totally a nightmare. But we'll see what happens come later on this morning and the winds pick up again.

Right now I'm going to bed. My beautiful city is on fire, and I'm tired out from worrying about it all day long.

Wow, didn't realize the fires were all the way down near y'all; good to hear everyone is safe, even if not everyone is out of the woods yet.

There's three major fires. One of them is over 120,000 acres alone. The sky outside this morning is bright yellowish/orange, and the sun is just a ball of orange fire. You can look at it directly for as long as you want, since it's completely shielded by the smoke. The streets outside look as if it's snowed -- the ash is just covering everything. It's really scary... looks like Armageddon.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/2582220/detail.html

I'll just say that I'm glad everyone is safe and I hope the fire is put out real soon! Now... let's see if I can gather some clouds over that area... *goes off and tries really hard*

Great time to move on down-- the land is cheap right now! :)

Oddly enough, the grade caught fire today and burned several mountains black. We're talking high flames right up next to the highway on my way to school. There were fire fighters all over it (hundreds of 'em in color coded suits - kind of a stunning sight) and they had it mostly controlled by the time I headed home. Odd timing.

Yup, all the schools are closed, you can't go outside without a mask because of all that smoke you can see on the photo. But of course the neighbors next door (useless sacks of shit) were letting their children run around outside, breathing in all the carcinogens. Lovely.

This might give everyone a better idea of just how much of SD has been/is on fire in the last few days.

Bryce and I: If you look at the Otay Fire, between the red fire markings and the yellow you can see a lake. We're located just west of that, about halfway to the 805.

Matt: The two main freeways that run north-south are the 805 and the 5. Matt's house is located just south of where those two freeways merge, just west of the Cedar Fire (you can see how much of a monster that one is).

http://www.kfmb.com/misc/sd_fires_2003/activefiremap-400pm.jpg

That's gotten right up to the edge of the 805.. that's not good..

I took some photos of the Santa Barbara sky yesterday (Tuesday) morning.... as you can see from the satellite photo, the wind blew some smoke up this way... and these pictures show that. The sun was orange-red most of the day... it's even more pronounced in the photos that I tried to get of the blue sky towards the ocean.