Don't yell FIRE......

I was reminded of Jim Morrison...."Try to set the night on fire". The sky glowed red at night as all around Los Angeles, the mountains burned. It was nearly as bad as the Portolla fire of October 22, 2008. Then the fire burned down off the mountains and within blocks of our home. The air was too thick with smoke to breathe. All of greater Los Angeles area was covered with a dense brown cloud of smoke.

Most of America and the world do not understand these fires. They begin with the Santa Anna winds. This is when the wind switches from blowing west to east. Normal wind flow in Southern California is off the ocean and on to the land. This makes the area cool most of time. But, sometimes when High Pressure is over the Arizona and Nevada desert, the winds reverse and blow off the desert back west to Los Angeles. These winds are forced through narrow canyons where they increase due to the "venturi effect". This is like holding you thumb over the end of a garden hose. The same pressure forces the water, or air, out through a smaller opening at a faster rate. Winds increase to 70 mph and the humidity drops.

The humidity this past weekend was 6%. The temperature was in the 90s and the wind was blowing at gust of 50 mph. Fires erupted from any spark and fanned by winds spread out over thousands of acres. Embers from the fires blow in the wind and land on homes. New fires begin and embers from those blow further and start new fires. Like a burning swarm it spreads over miles within minutes jumping over fire trucks and across freeways into subdivisions.

I called my friend Logan Saturday. He owns a home in Carbon Canyon in Brea. All I got was a fast busy signal. I watched TV coverage as they said the entire area was on fire. Today I spoke with Logan. He said the phone went out when the heat got so hot that the telephone poles burned. He spent Saturday night on the roof of his home running sprinklers to soak himself and his house.

The evidence suggests that these fires have been happening for a thousand years. Warm dry wind and lightening created fires long before man moved to the Region. Now that California is nearly 38 million people, the potential for fire and fire damage is much greater. We need to face the fact that the Fire Season is here to stay. There is a huge opportunity for companies to develop new and better fire fighting equipment.