The "Silverado Canyon" fire burning in the Irvine area since early this morning is heading in my direction. Thankfully, there's nowhere near as much vegetation as in most of the areas that have burned in Northern California, but there's still lots of brush.
The wind was so bad earlier that air support was grounded. When I left this morning, my street was covered with brush and trees were swaying wildly, but right now it seems to have calmed considerably, yet about 10 miles to the north, in the fire area, it's still blowing pretty hard. Fortunately, nearby homes are pretty new, designed with good brush clearance, etc. Also, this is a cold wind event, not nearly as dangerous as the hot ones we usually get.
I'm keeping fingers crossed and trying to get organized to leave quickly, if I have to. I received another emergency alert recently warning folks in several neighborhoods to the NE of me to get ready to evacuate, but so far, I'm OK where I am... And this is only 6 hrs into this fire.
Just heard it's up to 4000 acres burned now - but it looks like water-dropping helicopters are back up and working.
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