Fires

Whoa! Fires blaze as I type.

We had some smoke the first year I lived in SoCal from fires around the Southwest, but that was nothing like the stuff smouldering right now. I was in Long Beach yesterday coaching the Ghettobirds. At about 11:00, the air turned instantly from clear to smoky. We blamed it on pollution but found out later that fires were spreading their ashes all across the Southland. I don't even think it was wise for the college teams in Long Beach to play yesterday, but the show went on.

Here in downtown LA, I'm safe and sound. None of the fires are in South Central. In fact, I live where there aren't enough trees to cook an egg over, so no need to worry about the buildings and people in this neighborhood.

I do, however, have a friend at Cal Arts up north and other crew around the edges of the Southland. And my roommate, an alum of Pepperdine, the school in Malibu, is especially tuned into the radio/tv about major developments in fighting the fires. Here are the locations of the fires as far as I know.

Irvine (south of the city)
Malibu (west of us)
Valencia (north of the SF valley)
San Diego County (south a couple hours drive)

And here's a little photo from LATimes.com.