Well, the Southern California fire has hit my little suburb of Oak Park - and the town is supposed to be evacuated. I'm not leaving, of course, but we're pretty well surrounded by smoke and ashes. We have a family staying with us, whose house is right up against the fires, and another hanging out for the day. Our house isn't right up in the foothills, so we're pretty safe for now.

The phones were ringing all night and when I woke up at 6:00, I looked out the window in the darkness and saw the mountains all outlined in orange. I'm sure that Ventura County's finest will have everything under control shortly... the firetrucks are lined up in several place waiting for outbreaks.

I took this picture up the street from me about an hour or so ago. You can see that in some areas like this, the flames are right near the houses. The helicopters were dumping stuff on the flames, and a firetruck was waiting up at the top of the cul-de-sac if the homes were threatened.

There are a few older neighborhoods a little south of us in Agoura where most of the houses still have wood shake roofs (ie: matchbooks). If the fire goes through there, it won't be pretty.

They're saying that if the wind picks up to yesterday's level, this thing will burn all the way through Malibu to the ocean. That wouldn't be good.