Smoke Gets In. . .

That's how it felt to The Ancient One when he woke up this morning; smoke getting in the eyes, the nose, the lungs. And we're the lucky ones. We live about 30 miles from the nearest of the major fires in Southern California this weekend. We are safe albeit downwind from the Yorba Linda/Corona/Chino Hills, etc fire. With the Santa Ana winds gusting, we knew that others were suffering by the smell and our stinging eyes

Actually, we did have a fire here in Rancho Palos Verdes yesterday. About 10 acres burned in a canyon near City Hall but no buildings were involved and firefighters had it out in about 1½ hours. We saw the smoke and smelled that one too. Below are a couple of pictures I took this morning on my daily walk. Remember, this is more than 30 miles downwind.

First, a shot from the same vantage point of the banner at the top of this blog:

And, a canyon along the way:

Right now our thoughts and prayers are with the tens of thousands people uprooted from their homes. And the hundreds of families who have no home to return too, over 500 of them from one trailer park in the Sylmar area of the San Fernando Valley. (photo below after the fire had passed and continued on its way)

We are hoping that the winds die down and the humidity goes up to assist the firefighters who are out there in the firestorms trying to get the upper hand. In the more than 26 years The Ancient One has lived in Southern California, these fires are absolutely the scariest events; much scarier than all but the biggest of earthquakes.