Southern California Continues to Sizzle with Fires

Southern California is still smoldering, and there appears no end in sight. As firefighters are being stretched to their limits battling over twenty raging brush fires in five Southern California counties, record heat and low humidity are further impeding their progress. Fueled by a stagnant high pressure system hovering over the Utah and Colorado region, Santa Ana Winds have been blowing relentlessly across Southern California.

These winds, which are common for this time of year, have been greatly impeding firefighters' efforts to quelch the advancing flames. They not only help to spread fire by blowing burning brush into adjacent areas, but they also deplete drought-stricken vegetation of any residual moisture. Overtaxed firefighters are looking forward to a forecasted change in the weather pattern back to more seasonal, cooler, and less-windy conditions by midweek.

Today might have been the worst day yet, temperature-wise. Humidity levels were in the single digits over most of the southland, and temperatures were near-record levels in many parts of the area, with downtown Los Angeles falling just short of the 90 degree mark.

But the air quality is horrible no matter what part of Southern California you reside. I live in Cerritos, which is on the border of Los Angeles and Orange Counties; roughly twenty-miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

Here the air is thick with smoke; the sky is a hazy, murky color, with the smell of fresh burning wood. Even though the day was hot, much of the sunlight was thwarted by the thick layer of smoke in the air. Everything is covered with a fine coat of soot and ash - even my laptop, which I had stored in a zipper case, had a fine coating of ashy dust on the screen. And I'm a good distance away from the nearest fire.

The nearest brush fire to my location is roughly twenty nautical miles away - the Santiago Canyon Fire in the foothills of Orange County which has burned over 15,000 acres so far, a blaze that is suspected as being the result of arson. All total, there are twenty brush fires burning across Southern California, from as far north as Santa Barbara, to as far south as San Diego. The largest fire, the Ranch Fire, has burned over 41,000 acres in the foothills above Magic Mountain.