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.