Southern California Wildfires

During this week, we have had the Santa Ana winds blow through San Diego county. Temperatures across the county are around 100 during the day and it isn't cooling off enough at night. My house has had power outages for the last couple days (a couple hours yesterday and most of the daytime hours today). Tommorrow the winds are supposed to die down, but it will be the hottest day this week with low humidity. Fires are popping up across the county. We may not get another blackout from the wind, but we could have a transmission emergency from the fires burning down the power lines, or rolling blackouts from a shortage of power from the grid due to high demand. There is a real possibility these fires could be as bad as in 2003 and 2007 and the state is in drought and we have record highs plus the Santa Ana winds. Many of the schools around the county are closed as a result of these fires in highly populated areas.

Triple digit temps/double digit wind/single digit humidity does it every time. The San Manuel Casino nearly burned down a couple weeks ago, I drove by and couldn't even see their parking garage. Glad they can afford proper brush clearing, but it's a shame not everyone can. And though it's usually wind that takes out the power lines, smoke is conductive, so mind fires near high-power lines..

The Cocos fire is over 3,000 acres as of now. It started in San Marcos near a university and has spread into parts of Escondido. These are highly populated areas and the fire has burned some homes, businesses, and condominiums. It shut down a hospital yesterday. Many of the schools and colleges have been shut down for the last few days. The smoke from this fire blanketed Ramona over 20 miles away yesterday. We are still under Restricted Maintainance Operations from the California ISO because of damage to the power lines by the fires. Thousands lost power yesterday in San Marcos and Escondido because of the fire. This fire has caused at least $20 million in damage so far. As of now, it is 10 percent contained.

The Pulgas Fire started at Camp Pendleton and is 5 percent contained as of this morning. It has grown to over 8,000 acres.

The Tomahawk fire, also at Camp Pendleton, scorched over 6,300 acres and is 15 percent contained.

The Pointsettia Fire in Carlsbad is 100 percent contained but burned 400 acres and destroyed 22 homes, apartments and condos. This fire had also lead to evacuations at Lego Land. This fire caused $22.5 million in damage.

The Bernardo Fire in Rancho Bernardo is now 90 percent contained but scorched 1,548 acres. No structures were lost.

Yesterday alone, there were a total of 9 fires started within a few hours. Only one was ruled accidental. The other 8 were considered suspicious and may have been caused by arson. Since Tuesday, 125,000 evacuation notices have been sent (that's 125,000 homes or locations, not people).

Here's an update on the fires still going:

Cocos Fire (San Marcos/Escondido area): 50% containment, 2,520 acres burned, 42,000 evacuation notices sent out.

Pulgas Fire (Camp Pendleton area): 0% containment, 14,500+ acres burned

Tomahawk Fire (Camp Pendleton area): 65% containment, 6,500 acres burned

San Mateo Fire (Camp Pendleton area): 0% containment, 700+ acres burned

Bernardo Fire (Rancho Bernardo area): 90% containment, 1,548 acres burned

Pointsettia Fire (Carlsbad area): 90% containment, 600 acres burned, 22 structures destroyed

CNN is reporting that at least one man has been arrested for arson. Fire officials suspect arson because many of the fires started near roads. They are investigating. The one man arrested was seen adding brush to a burning fire by citizens who called the police.