It's as predictable as the Cubs missing out on the World Series.
October comes roaring in to Southern California with gusty Santa Ana winds that clear the sky of all the haze, and for a couple of days, the San Fernando Valley looks beautiful.
Then some asshat starts a fire.
I was thinking of that last week, while driving gymnastics carpool through the Santa Susana Pass into Simi Valley. That's the 35-mile route we take now to get from Northridge to Newbury Park each day. It's mountainous, and on a clear day, it's gorgeous. But it's also prone to brush fires, and I caught myself wondering if we'd have to miss some gym days this year because of fire.
On Monday I got my answer.
The air quality in Northridge was already bad Monday morning, when I dropped my daughter off at school. At that time, a fire out in Lakeview Terrace (northeast of our neighborhood) had been burning for over 24 hours. I was pleased that Megan had remembered to take her inhaler - I had a feeling she was going to need it.
I worked Monday through a constant hum of firefighting helicopters overhead, a fact I announced over Twitter. That's when my friend @Adriennev informed me that I was likely hearing the fight against a new fire that had broken out in nearby Porter Ranch. At that time, the news was reporting that the fire had broken out up on Oat Mountain, and that residents of the uppermost housing development there had been evacuated. I have a lot of friends who live in the area, but their homes were south and east of that location, so I wasn't all that worried.
But at 1:00, I got a call from my husband, who told me that a large stretch of the 118 Freeway was closed. That's the route we take to gym, and we like it because we don't have to face the traffic from the dread 405 and 101 - but I figured that's how we would go yesterday.
Then Gareth informed me that traffic was backed up badly from Santa Clarita into the San Fernando Valley, and that would affect the third member of our carpool, who lives up there. I called Karie and we decided that it might be a good idea for our girls to skip gym for a day.
But that was the extent of my thought on the fire -- until I finally walked out of the house and started driving to school and saw that the flames had traveled a lot farther east than the news had been reporting. I was glad I'd had the foresight to grab my camera; while waiting for the bell to ring I got some nice shots of the smoke cloud emanating from the hills to our north.
Megan and her friend Maggie weren't at all disappointed about missing gym. I'd arranged with Maggie's dad to bring her up to our house until he could come get her; they would have a rare Monday afternoon to get their homework done (like normal kids who don't train for four hours a day after school). But as we drove north towards the house, I realized that our home might not be the best place to hang out after all; we could clearly see the flames as the fire seemed to be moving DOWN the hill directly above our house.
The flames were visible looking up the hill from our driveway -- which was a bit of a distraction for the girls, who could not resist breaking away from their algebra homework every 10 minutes or so to go outside and take a peek. It was distracting for me, too.
Our home is in a good spot. We live in a hillside neighborhood, but we're near the bottom and our property is adjacent to a storm drain of the LA River (yes, it's concreted over and doesn't have much water in it now, but there's less of a brush danger down here). If we were ever truly threatened by a hillside fire, we would have plenty of time to get away before it makes its way down here.
This year's fire came close to proving that theory.
The Sesnon Fire (Sesnon is the name of one of the area's northernmost streets) came awfully close to my home yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, firefighters were able to put out that particular hotspot before any homes were damaged in our neighborhood.
But I had a very unproductive day, as I was unable to focus on much of anything but the fire reports on the radio.
Although it's too early to close the book on the October 2008 fires, I'm grateful the Santa Anas have not been as strong as the ones last year (so far). In fact, the outlook today is pretty good; although the Sesnon fire continues to move westward in Simi Valley, it was (as of this morning) 20% contained, and (as of this morning) not threatening more homes. The Porter Ranch folks who had to evacuate on Monday and Tuesday have been told they can return.
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