Since our heatwave has broken, I decided to start a new thread about the fires.

CNN has a good story about them here:
Wildfires' smoke, ash chokes Northern Californians - CNN.com

The lead photo shows the extent of smoke coverage:



For reference, that Lake Tahoe at the right lower third, and Eureka in the top left corner. The State is about 230 miles wide there, so the smoke covered area in just this photo is perhaps 200 x 200 miles or 40,000 square miles.

Foxnews.com is reporting this morning that firefighters are being sent to California from as far away as Maryland. FWIW, Maryland is on the Atlantic Coast, and we are on the Pacific Coast. A quick look at Street Atlas shows the route from Baltimore MD to Sacramento CA is 2,737 miles, so those firemen have some traveling to do.

FOXNews.com - California Fires Bring Dismal Air Quality, Threaten Health - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

• Crews Fight California Fires as Lightning Threatens to Ignite More Flames
• Tourists Desert California Coast as Wildfires Spread
• Gov. Schwarzenegger Asks Bush to Declare Fire Emergency as Firefighters Prepare for Long Battle
• Air Quality Advisory Extended for Bay Area, Section of Highway 1 Remains Closed
• Maryland Firefighters Head to California As Fires Advance to Big Sur

The closure of famed California Highway 1 100 miles north of us is being felt in our area as summer tourism along that road has effectively been halted. Hotels, motels, and restaurants are seeing their business drop off a lot.

And, it's another murky day in SLOtown... But Jimi King will be on Live from London on SKY.FM in a half hour, so that'll be nice.

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Thanks for the 'insider' view. Stay safe. Clive

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Hi Slo is there any more of an update on this? How are you getting on yourself over there?

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Let's see. Since I last posted, the Gap Fire started up ~100 miles SE of us near Goleta (just north of Santa Barbara). 0% containment, 2,400 acres. It's the fire of main concern in CA right now, due to the proximity to homes and the rail line and the SB airport.

Unretouched color photo from my employer Wednesday about 2 miles from the Gap Fire:



Evacuations have been/are happening. See the pic on this story from CNN:

California fires threaten Big Sur, Santa Barbara County - CNN.com

As noted in the story, the Basin Complex is threatening Big Sur and there are evacuations in place up there as well.

To the east near Tehachipi, the Piute Fire is threatening a coworker's family ranch.





Firewise, SLO County is OK so far. However, today is Independence Day and SLO County is a tourist destination and it's dry and warm here. I expect we will see some fire activity locally now through Sunday night.

As far as the air, generally it's poor. Yesterday dawned clear and sweet-smelling for the first time in weeks. Visibility was 50 miles. Then, just after noon, the winds kicked in and blew in the smoke. Visibility rapidly dropped to about 3 miles for the afternoon.

I had a little "aha" moment about the smoke a couple of days ago. Mostly, fire smoke doesn't bother me. We have 2 fireplaces in the house, one down in the cabin, and an outside fire ring down there that we cook over a lot, and the smoke is no big deal.

However, even at low concentrations, this wildfire smoke has been very irritating. Then, I remembered a post I read on a California Native Plants list about how prevalent poison oak is along the coast from Santa Barbara north to Santa Cruz. Smoke from burning poison oak is especially dangerous, as the vaporized urushiol can be inhaled and cause all sorts of respiratory problems. It's my feeling that there is small amounts of urushiol in the wildfire smoke, concentrations too low to cause clinical symptoms, but enough to cause irritation and coughing.

And, Northern California continues to burn, as shown in this morning's Calfire PDF.
If you look at it, you'll see that San Luis Obispo County now has fire on 3 sides of it, and the 4th side is the Pacific Ocean.

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This is on the front page of the LA Times Saturday, and is one of the coolest air drop photos I have ever seen:



credit Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times

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Head's up

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