Welcome to Sunny San Diego!

We are lucky! We are in a clear spot between the northern and southern fires in San Diego County. We have relatively clean air and blue skies. We’re the exception certainly. I thought we had seen it all at the Cedar fires, those fires were closer to us but they were a campfire compared to the damage being done this year. Half a million people have been evacuated so far. The real eye opener that I had during Cedar (confirmed by this year’s experience) is that when fires like this happen, they just burn. The firemen don’t have the support or manpower to fight all the fronts, so they burn. Any one of these fires would be a challenge to put out for sure, but they could be managed. Pile them all on at once and it’s all they can do to save a structure or two on a block of burning buildings. Case in point, a building caught fire last night. It was just an ordinary house fire that the local engine company would normally respond to and put out. There’s no one to do that, they are all on the front lines, so the house caught the surrounding brush and now it’s a fire with its own moniker, damage stats and weather system.

We are cancelling our performance of Jersey Boys tonight. Air quality, and stress on the power grid, not to mention keeping citizens off the streets during an emergency situation are the reasons. Lots of work for us but that’s life in the big city. Paula and I are in the middle of the city so we aren’t really in any danger. If you ever hear of Balboa Park burning that might be a concern because we are right across the street from that, but the rural fires THAT ARE PREDICTED TO BURN TO THE SEA can you believe that, don’t really pose a threat to us.

Idyllwild is a different thing now. If a fire happens up there in the right place, our house is out on the ragged edge and would probably be among the first to burn. But so far, in this set of fires, there’s been nothing burning up there. Knock on wood. Back to work.