Ah, yes. In addition to the Jacaranda trees, the temperatures getting up to the 90s, the final exam of my undergraduate courses, and the days of confusion as I try to make the transition from mostly-teaching to mostly-research (I just blogged about it) I’ve had another reminder of the beginning of a long hot summer. Fire.
Click for larger. Flames and smoke of the Griffith Park fire today. You can see them clearly while carrying on with your business in the neighbourhoods near the park.
This time, it hit close to home. No, really. This afternoon a huge fire started raging in the hills of Griffith park (the one I live near, which I often tell you about). I could see flames licking skyward as I made my way home from the bus stop. Occasionally, a helicopter would fly over and dump a load of water on to the flames. (I just missed taking a photograph of a helicopter water drop for you, but a car came up behind me… I was standing in the middle of the road…)
Click for larger. Another picture showing proximity to some homes. You can just see the end of a plume of water from one of the helicopters.
It’s all very odd to see the lands where I regularly hike going up in smoke like that. I wonder how close to controlling it they will get? In this shot, you can see that it has a way to go to get to the Griffith Observatory, but given how rapidly it spread up from the valley (down by the zoo, which was evacuated… of people…some animals put away and on standby), one can’t help but wonder.
Click for larger. This is the Westernmost reach of the fire (at least at about 6:00pm.) You can see Griffith Observatory, and the Hollywood sign in the distance just beyond.
This had to be just the beginning of a somewhat fire-laden season for the region. All parks and other highly vegetated spaces are dry tinder boxes. We’ve had, if I recall, less than 20% of the rainfall that we are supposed to have had in the last year (3+ inches instead of the 15+, if I recall the numbers), and so there’s a lot of dry stuff out there. On the other hand, less rain meant less growth during the start of the growing season, so less extra vegetation has been produced. It seems that the former wins over the latter, for we started being warned to be extra careful quite early this year…
This puts me in mind of the first Fall I was here, a few years back. There was a period when it was as though we were preparing for a Tolkeinesque “there will be no dawn” battle. The sky was thick with smoke for hundreds of miles, and for long stretches on the drive up to Santa Barbara (I was going to a workshop) the sun was a dim orange disc in the sky… and then I pulled over to look out, to find that it was snowing. Except that the snowflakes where white ash, falling everywhere for many miles….
-cvj
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aaaahh yes, i remember those well. Sad to surmise that they will become more likely than ever. Indeed this week, up here in the Northwest, is officially the Tornado and Severe Storm Awareness and Preparation Week; with most local and regional meterologists suggesting we can expect more such storms with increasing severity. The stories and warning mention the potential for increased fires from dry lightning storms both on the prairies and in the forests. Puts a hint of a damper on these very summer-like beautiful spring days, when we all should be relishing the warmth of the sun and lovely explosion of green (and all those grasses).
It was scary. As the sun went down, the wind changed and whipped up the fire close to Los Feliz. It was eery. As the light dimmed, the clouds of smoke suddenly took on a ominous red orange glow.
scary
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