Welcome to Hell

Steely Dan sings on Babylon Sisters......."here comes those Santa Ana winds again". I was thinking of it last night as I stood at Irvine and Sand Canyon, watching the fire consume the hill side along Portola Parkway. Two thing stood between the fire and our new home. A dirt lot and a thin red line of fire fighters.

We watch the weather on TV. There really isn't much weather to discuss in Southern California. The temperature is nearly always 78 except for the days when it is hot....like 82, or cold...like 75. There are those five or six days a year when we get "winter storms". This is just rain, but it is an event in Southern California. Then there are the Santa Anas.

They say the Santa Anas are the winds of satan. The name may have come from the Spanish, "vientos de Sanatanas". Reality is, they are named for the Santa Ana mountains and canyon that separate the Orange County coast from the inland desert. As high pressure builds over the desert, it develops winds that turn clockwise around the High. These winds are forced through the mountains where they build heat, speed, and low humidity. The result are 50 mile per hour sustained winds with temperatures in the high 80s and humidity as low as 10%. Hot dry wind. Like a blast furnace blowing down on metro Los Angeles.

So, Sunday, October 21, 2007, began with high wind just prior to sun up. By 8:00 AM fires had developed in Malibu and Santa Clarita. The air was filled with dust and sand. At 6:00 PM a new fire began on Santiago Canyon road. This fire quickly grew into a 2500 acre blaze covering the hills above Irvine. The fire burned down the hills closer and closer to Portola and the homes in Irvine. The air was thick with smoke and flying embers that would land and start new fires.

I watched as the Orange County fire department set up a line on Portola. This would be their stand to stop the fire from spreading into the homes on the west side of Portola. The fire grew stronger as it approached. More and more of my neighbors came to watch as the fire burned through 100 year old eucalyptus trees. They were like torches burning in the sky. I worried that the embers would blow over the fire line and ignite the empty lot between us and Portola. It tried several times but did not succeed. The fire line held. These men and trucks against a wall of fire. They held the fire until in slowly burned down and then moved south to Foothill Ranch.

Our new home and our new neighborhood was saved by those men and that dirt lot that refused to catch fire. The sky burned red all night. Pam packed a bag for a fast exit just in case. I got up every couple hours to watch the sky and check for evacuation orders. By dawn the fire and those men had moved south to replay their game of chicken. Men against a wall of fire. Homes and families in the balance. Babylon Sisters; Drive west on Sunset to the sea,Turn that jungle music down.