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I work less than ten miles from where the fire started. It went from +/- 100 acres yesterday morning at 10:30 to over 30,000 by this morning. They are still reporting 0% containment. It is +/-105 degrees with 5% humidity. And that corridor is a natural windy area. The 'Santana's or Santa Ana winds are notorious in that area and can top out at over 100 MPH. They are currently blowing north at +/- 30 MPH. There was another fire on the east side and north of the 15 freeway a week and a half ago.
The fire service people are amazing. And the pilots of the C130's and jet's that drop the retardant are super-humans. The big planes land at San Bernardino airport just east of here to refill and then they follow the freeway back to line up for the drops. They fly at incredibly scary low altitudes. They have smaller spotter planes to help line them up for their runs. Plus there are a large number of helicopters that suck water out of anything/everything and then fly back in for strategic spot drops. Combined with the smoke, it makes for a crazy air show to watch from the freeway. There +/-82,000 people +/- 30,000 residences who are under mandatory evacuation orders as of now.
All that being said, more people have lost homes and lives in Louisiana than this fire so far. I believe I heard they received over 24" of rain in 48 hours. With more in their forecast. That is more rain than Los Angeles has received in the last 3 1/2 years. (Which is why the whole place is on fire or gonna be) I just looked up the totals. And the fire area is +/- 70 miles east of LA and much drier out here.
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