Well, some things are looking better -- at least for Tujunga, crazy sounding name or not. The winds have abated some, and the Marek fire is 75% contained. Of course, "containment" is a relative thing. A shift of the wind, and all "containment" is off, but the fire officials are "cautiously optimistic." Several evacuation orders have been lifted. I've finally opened my windows. It still smells something like a giant campfire, but the prevailing winds are blowing away from where I live.

It was pretty freaky, driving home last night, to see people pulled up alongside the road watching the fires burn. The fires look something like a a National Geographic volcanoes special. It's an odd feeling looking up at what are normally a hulking dark mass above Los Angeles and instead seeing a red glow outlined against the night sky.

Those downwind of the Sesnon fire may not be so lucky. The winds are still strong there. The fire may be headed to the sea down the "Malibu corridor" which seems to get a major fire every year almost without fail. The topography is such that the fires get funnelled into deep, narrow canyons. The high pressure (which is what causes Santa Ana winds), drops throush these deep narrow canyons straight to the low pressure area over the sea. The deep narrow canyons channelize and concentrate the winds. Add to that the fact that fires create their own wind drafts, and you get a resulting firestorm that marches to the sea in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Sherman's march during the Civil War: unstoppable with not much left standing in its wake.

Let's pray that the winds die down -- or at least everyone gets out OK. We lost an entire engine company in 2006 when a firestorm overtook them so quickly that they didn't even have time to deploy their fire protective shelters. The sight of a blackened and melted fire truck with coroner's tarps covering bodies all around it is not something one forgets easily.