A little less than a week ago, on Tuesday January 7 2025, the massive and incredibly destructive fires in Los Angeles started. The Palisades and Eaton fires are causing much of the damage, but there have been a number of other fires also. It’s so sad to see what people are dealing with. Entire neighborhoods leveled to nothing. Livelihoods and possessions destroyed. And saddest of all, there have been a lot of people who didn’t make it out, and have lost their lives. It’s awful! My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected.
Yesterday, I took a 3 mile hike (#3 of my 52in25) at one of our local lakes here in San Diego, lake Poway. It’s a beautiful little spot in North County that I spend quite a bit of time at. Hiking, biking, relaxing, fishing, boating, it has a little bit of everything.
While there I took some photos to show those of you unfamiliar with our terrain just how dry and fire-fuel-like it is. I grew up in a cold, wet climate and before coming here I couldn’t imagine how fires could burn like these do. In fact I came here shortly before the Cedar Fire of 2003, and the scale of that fire is incredible. Check it out on the map at the link above.
This type of brush is common throughout a lot of SoCal. You may think, well why don’t they clear it. People do. Clearing brush near homes is so important. Fire crews perform controlled burns quite frequently, and it’s not uncommon to see herds of ring-fenced goats being brought in to help get rid of some by eating it. However, this type of brush and super dry terrain can liters go on for miles and miles. Our hillsides are covered in it. We don’t see rain for months on end. And then when a fire does start, if we are experiencing Santa Ana winds, with extreme gusty conditions, then this stuff just burns at lightning speed. Spreading to residential areas is almost a given.
Here in San Diego, we have been under a Red Flag Warning (fire alert) for most of the time since the LA fires started. Here’s the latest from Alert San Diego on that.
The scenes I’ve watched during the past few days have given me a new sense of awareness of the fire threat that we live under. For many months of the year this threat is a very real fact of life. Being prepared to evacuate is essential. I’ve had to do so twice in my time here and sadly have had neighbors who lost their homes in this type of natural disaster. The possibility of losing everything is a scary thought and one which we must accept if we want to continue living in this beautiful part of the world.
Thanks for reading. Till next time…
Photos and videos taken with GoPro Hero 13