Fires

As I've mentioned the Santa Ana winds leave all of California's vegetation dried out and that leads to FIRE!!! I got a rude awakening last year when the Witch fire closed down Scripps Ranch, the neighborhood my school was in. I never realized that fires were so common in California. I knew that I heard about fires pretty often but I just had no clue that Californians went through this every year!

How's this happen? The thing is it doesn't rain that much in SoCal so when the Santa Ana's dry everything out it doesn't get green again. Anything from a camp fire ember, a spark from a car accident, to a lightening strike can start a fire. The amazing thing is lightening strike sites can smolder for days before they break out into fire and that fire spreads quickly. Thus the origin of the phrase "spreading like wildfire." :) I've seen a fire go from hot spot with a trail of smoke to a full fledged fire in five minutes.

I remember talking to my father the day they closed down Scripps Ranch and his closing words to me were "Welcome to California!" I love my father.