Friday, September 30, 2005

The "Topanga" Fire

The newscast has named the fire as the "Topanga" Fire. That's one of the canyon's name around here and the name of the street near where the fire first started. It appears that the fire has moved away from at least West Hills. Supposedly the day is supposed to be a bit cooler than last few days (it's been 90-100 degrees in the valley) so that is good news. Hopefully, they will have better containment than 5% today, and we can stop watching the news.

I couldn't resist snapping a couple of pictures of the TV screen last night before going to bed.
A shot of ABC news on 9/29 around 11 p.m. showing where the fires are & showing the geography of San Fernando Valley + Ventura County.

Yup, that's WEST HILLS on ABC news last night. Had to take a shot. Posted by Picasa

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Los Angeles Fire... aka Fire in My Backyard.

Ok. So I have not been keeping up with blogging... that's my bad. But I figure you should know that we are right near the L.A. fire that's being reported.

My parents (and I, at the moment) live in West Hills, CA. That's at the northern edge of L.A. county, and very near the Ventura County. We are south of Chatsworth. Fire started yesterday from Chatsworth, and we saw smoke and fire from my room off to the mountains that are only about 10-15 minute drive from us. I made my mom pack important documents and change of clothes. I did the same. It's rather unnerving when you can see the flames coming down the mountain side and wondering if we can go to bed. My dad stayed awake until 2 a.m. to see if we needed to evacuate, and the fire fortunately turned to the other side of the mountains.

This morning, we unpacked because we thought the fire had passed us and that we were safe. This afternoon, the wind shifted, and suddenly the fire was right by us, to the west. ABC news started reporting from West Hills, and that people up on the hills near us was told to evacuate. So, we packed all our stuff again, ready to evacuate if need be. It's weird to see TV newscast reporting about your city, your streets! Anyway, right now, it seems the fires are blowing away from us and blowing towards Bell Canyon (to the west of us).

So, in case you wanted to see what I was watching from my room, front yard, and backyard. Here they are. No joke. These are all taken from my parents' house.
You can see the firefighters taking the Valley Circle to get to the fires off in the distance. This is taken from my room! Yes, we are keeping a close watch.

The ashes are raining down on us.

The fires are coming from Bell Canyon and it's inching toward us. This is also from my room.

We saw the flames! The news are reporting that the fires are coming to West Hills, where my parents live.

The fires are getting bigger.

And bigger. People are lined up to watch the fire and to see if we need to evacuate. Wisconsin street in West Hills was told to evacuate at this point. That is the road right up our street. We started packing again.

And the flames continued against the night sky.

This, again, is a shot from my room. But the flames are now blowing away because the wind shifted and not coming towards us. The firefighters have done a great job, none of the houses were destroyed. It's pretty scary when you see the ABC reporting about YOUR streets!! Posted by Picasa
View from my room of the fire out in Bell Canyon. My parents' house is west of the fire.

Another view from my room. The fire moved to Bell Canyon from Chatsworth area last night. And we were monitoring to see if the fire would cross to our side of the mountains.

The smoke became thick, black, orange, and ominous in the afternoon.

That's my parents' house, against the smoke.

Another shot of the smoke, with the park opposite from our house.

We saw helicopters that kept coming.

Another shot from my window. Because my room is on the second floor, I got a better view than from the ground floor.

And ashes starting snowing down around 3-4 today.

The smoke was so thick, it covered the sun completely.

Just so you can see the difference, there's the sun, the smoke, and the clear part of the sky.

From the backyard. Posted by Picasa