I woke up early to the first ash floating down from the big fire burning up the opposite canyon faces of the fire two months ago.
The Alcade, er mayor of El A is on the teevee telling us to " avoid using your appliances because of rolling blackouts, but keep the teevee on to hear emergency updates. O.K. he's earning his salary.
I've declined 4 requests to again volunteer for livestock evacuations.They now have mandatory liability waivers after I was sued several years ago ( prospective 'showhorse' picked up a blemish when I rescued it from a burning barn.)
I walked ou with my freetrade, organic coffee for my paper.Front page proclaimes MONTECITO AND SYLMAR CONSUMED BY FIRE!
I have this perverse habit of flipping immediately to the very back page. And there, in a full page ad ' EXCLUSIVE! Single unit luxury home in exclusive canyon location! Horse facilities next to trails!
My last, visible means of support was doing the archaeologic survey for this property.I remember mumbling even a chumash wouldn't be dumb enough to crawl into this nasty piece of mostly, verticle poison oak. My 1/64th chumash monitor gave me a dirty look, slapped at a biting insect and asked if I brought lunch and propheticaly "I'd hate to be here during fire season."
I need to bug out, maybe rig the lottery, buy a 55' ketch and become a tahitian charter captain far beyond the eyes of my old outfit.
" I love L.A.!
It's just another perfect day!"

I turned on the TV when I came home last night and caught the early phase of this fire. Since it was still rather small at that point, it was easy to see when the wind-driven fire was growing. One minute, the TV helicopter pans away from a small area of flames, shows another area, then pans back a few minutes later and now that small spot fire is this huge wall of flame.

Around 11:30pm last night, probably one of the first set of houses caught on fire. It wasn't right on the line, though. That's the scary part. Some embers had blown into the interior of the neighborhood and randomly set a home on fire in the middle of the block. One, maybe two, adjacent homes quickly were on fire, flames shooting out of the windows like from a blow torch.

On the close-ups, you could see a few figures scurrying around the burning houses, silhouetted against the burning structures. There were reports at that time that some residents had becomes trapped when this pocket of fire suddenly cut them off and trapped them in their home. Haven't heard anything about them after that or this morning, so no idea if that report was accurate or what happened to them.

There seemed to be a lot of water-dropping helicopters flying last night, which seemed unusual, since nights ops are so dangerous. I guess the proximity of the fire to residential areas, the rugged terrain, and the gusting winds required the speed and flexibility of air support. Plus, the fire was pushing towards a nearby medical center.

So the fire actually did reach the Olive View Medical Center. I just saw a report from the parking area outside the hospital. Frightening story, actually.

So those winds did drive the fire from where I was watching the fire on TV last night, across a series of canyons towards the medical center around 2 am. Outlying bungalows used as office space burned down as the flames approached the main hospital. The reporter was standing next to an LA City ambulance that was totally burnt out--just an empty, black metal shell. And the roof of the main hospital actually caught on fire last night.

Apparently at least some patients were in the process of being evacuated when the main power went out. At that point, reportedly two emergency generators failed so there was no power in the hospital. I assume that only the battery-powered emergency lights, probably mostly just over the exit doors, and flashlights was all the light they had. Staff had to manually assist those patients on ventilators. The generators were eventually brought back on line, but it sounds like it took at least a couple hours to fix them. That must've been a stressful night in the hospital.

Well, some heads will probably roll over those generators, but the incident just goes to show that Murphy is on the prowl and just being in a building with multiple generator backup is no guarantee of having power when you need it the most--like in the dark hours of night with a fire raging just outside.

I heard a long time ago that generators should be cranked up every month or so. Do you think the hospitals know that? If they do, do you think they do it?

If our local Providence hospital is any indication of how most hospitals react to a disaster, it's the last place I would want to be.

And a woman I know of, who is in the hospital with terminal cancer, has just developed MRSA, compliments of doctors who can't be bothered to wash their hands.

Hospitals are no place for well people, much less sick people.

Sue

"...I heard a long time ago that generators should be cranked up every month or so..."

Any internal combustion engine should be run from time to time. You would think that the hospital maint folks would know that...

Sue,
There are other ways to get MRSA - I have community aquirred MRSA right now (confirmed by culture) along with entrococous - started the zyvox on Thursday night

I just got off the phone with my folks. They're in yorba linda, and my best friend's parents (kind of my surrogate parents) are in Brea, both of which have their own fires. My cousins are up in Sylmar, probably without a house at this point. Everyone else I know, so far, is OK.

I actually interviewed about 7 years ago at Olive View/UCLA. Kind of rustic, but I didn't think it was THAT exposed.

Regarding E-generators, I think they have to be tested monthly. When I worked in CA in an ER, we had them tested fairly frequently. The problem, of course, is that "tested" usually means they run for 10 minutes, and shut them back down. So, I wonder if Olive View's generators worked fine for the first few minutes, and eventually gave out after the normal test period ended? Maybe the regulations should be changed so that they're to be run for a longer period (24 hours?) every 1-3 months?

Anyway, it seems like half the southland is under smoke. Kind of worrisome.

I was out with my wife for a few hours this afternoon, here in south Orange county. There wasn't that much smoke visible in the distance, despite having several fires going further north of us. Can't smell any smoke in the air. However, I had to run another errand just now around 6pm and after driving for ten minutes, I realized that I could "feel" the pollution in the air in my chest. Must be all that microscopic particulate stuff wafting down this way.

Well, I may actually break out the N95 mask soon, even to wear inside the house (I have a history of asthma). After the horrible wildfires in SoCal last fall and just two N95 masks on hand to protect me through a week of heavy smoke and air pollution in my area, I stocked up on masks after that (thanks Redflare!).

Now that the sun has gone down and it's dark again, seeing these homes burn on TV--many of them rather large homes--is like watching a blast furnace running. So much flame. Wow, this fire just leap frogged through the Southland today and left a lot of people without homes who had no reason to think that they were in any dangers just this morning.

A test for what, exactly? A fire puts out a lot of stuff besides particulates. An N95 won't filter any of the gaseous fumes, so in that sense, it's no better than a wet rag. But it should trap a good portion of particulate pollution since most particles will be large enough to be stopped.

In related personal news, that tightness I felt in my chest has gone away once I spent some time indoors again, so no need for wearing a mask to bed tonight. That's good, since it's tough to keep them on when you sleep, let alone keep them from getting crushed and mussed up if you roll over onto them.

I'm pretty sure that an N95 is overkill. A regular dust mask should be fine - you're filtering pollens/dusts/allergens, not bacteria. After all, no one wears an N95 when they're doing yard work... do they?