Monday, October 13, 2008

Fire in the Hills


Not a good day for jogging.

A brown smear across the blue sky erased the Santa Monica Mountains this morning as I began my drive to work.
Usually winds from the ocean blow gas fumes east, but today Santa Ana winds from the Mojave Desert sent soot and smoke directly southwest to my neighborhood.

Taking the 405 north over Sepulveda Pass, I saw a white plume on mountains to the northeast and soon entered the driving smoke storm.

Palm fronds churned and other trees' branches flapped in the wind channel at Nordhoff Blvd., my exit for the CSU Northridge campus.

The campus itself was only occasionally in the direct blast when wind direction shifted but leaves and trash flew through the air.
Don't exercise, don't breathe, the administration advised in an email. I already had something like a smoker's cough just from walking too fast.

With the 210 freeway closed and the 118 just north of campus soon to close, only half the students showed up. It's Columbus Day but not a day off for CSUN.

At 2 pm with the fire about a mile north, my department chair came around to say classes were cancelled. I didn't tell her my husband had called two minutes earlier from the LA Times with that news and a report that two deaths had been caused so far by the fire.

Stopping at a gas station to fill up, I had to shield the tank from drifting flakes of soot.

A year ago yesterday Malibu Presbyterian Church burned to the ground.

It's the old joke, California's four seasons: fire, flood, drought and earthquake.

No comments: