Taken in October 2003, the morning after the Cedar Fire started. View east from Balboa Park over Morley Field and beyond. The red dot in the upper right is the sun.
Scary. Interesting shape to the bottom of the smoke - indeed surreal.
We visited San Diego after Christmas and went to see the exhibit on these fires at the Museum of Natural History there in Balboa Park. What really got me was the animation of the fire's spread - so amazingly fast - and scary. And the melted engine block and other items were sobering to view. My husband is a wildland fire fighter and he experiences this sort of thing routinely. We just had a fire near us - bizarre in February - winds were predicted at 8-10 and they came in that day at 40-60 mph with gusts to 80 mph. Not 10 miles from the fire we were experiencing several inches of drenching rain during the same period - but the humidity at the fire was only 14%. The fire went 7 miles in a few hours, jumping 2 major highways and burning a home, buildings, and 18 vehicles including 8 fire vehicles that were trapped. One fire truck burned when a flaming mattress was pinned against it by the high winds. Nobody was hurt badly but it could have easily been deadly. I'm grateful my husband had worked the night shift on it and had been released about 2 hours before the big blowup.
