Moorpark fire

A less impressive, but smokey fire  close to home
 

Oh but someone always does. I was up on a site visit in the Calabasas Mountains today when lo and behold a thick column of smoke was rising in the distance. It appears the California fire season has started (well it’s debatable as to whether it ever ended, as we had fires in December and February). This one is currently raging around Griffith Park which is thankfully miles from us. I haven’t had the misfortune to have too many hairy experiences with wildfires though the fam have a couple of times. They not once but twice had to pack valuables into cars and await a possible evacuation order as flames jumped into the air a couple of hundred feet away from the homestead.

My personal experience with wildfires was nonetheless surreal and involved driving home along the 101 through the Valley as the hills on the sides of the freeway glowed and sparked in the night. There was plenty of time to enjoy the Danteish views as well as the technically 45 minute journey took around 4 hours. As it was a stick shift car I could barely feel my legs at the end. The cruel irony was that I had to wake up the next day after 4 hours of sleep and head back into work on a train that rattled through some Apocalyptic terrain. Everything was black and there were even a few minute fires and embers that glowed on the tracks, something that did not really fill me with confidence. But fire is a part of life out here in Sunny SoCal, I just wonder what this summer will bring.