Information from San Diego, California

Perhaps Evelyn Paglini was right afterall.

what she said?

Is Santa Monica affected at all?

I am pretty far south of Santa Monica, so I don't know if that area is affected by any fires. Pretty sure it is not, but can't be sure.

They are up to 513,000 mandatory evacs here in SD County.

They actually have more volunteers than they have evacuees at Qualcomm Stadium. They are requesting NO more donations of food/water and No more volunteers at that site.

Is anyone else on this site from San Diego County?

Who is Evelyn Paglini and what did she say?

what do you mean they were preparing for it a week before it started???

I just googled Evelyn Paglini. Had no idea who she was either. Apparently she appeared on Coast to Coast in 2006 and these were her predictions (this post was in a James Randi forum and dated March 2006 by the way):

Parapsychologist and witchcraft practitioner Dr. Evelyn Paglini returned to the show, and as she did in her Nov. 2004 appearance, issued a dark forecast for the near future. There will be many natural disturbances as Mother Nature has been called upon to do a cleansing of the Earth, she explained. Among her predictions for the US in the year ahead:

* Clusters of tornados, ranked F4 or F5, with winds in excess of 250 mph.
* 5 major hurricanes will hit land, with necessary evacuations. FL, TX, LA and AL should all be prepared.
* Major flooding in CA, with levees and dams breaking. Several disaster areas will be declared.
* A bitterly cold winter with record snowfall.
* Major fires in CA, AZ and even parts of the Midwest.
* Two major quakes over 6 on the Richter scale, one in CA, the other in the Midwest.

Paglini also said the economy would be derailed, with severe layoffs, escalating oil prices, and a stock market "correction" in the fall. She also sees a rise of civil unrest, where some cities will be nearly under martial law, and a killer viral strain that hits during the winter of 2006-7.

She spoke about spells & curses, mirror magic, and mass consciousness experiments, such as ones done by practitioners, in the 1940's in England, to help defeat the Germans in WWII. Paglini also shared a visualization that helps people get in touch with their spirit guides. It involved closing your eyes, and picturing yourself in a large room with a cylindrical elevator, upon which the guides would arrive.

Thats what I thought too

I was in Santa Monica this morning. Not effected at all except for the air.

thanks for the info on SM

Well, obviously they were preparing for the Santa Ana winds that come every year at this time. Nothing sinister IMO.

My parents are in baja said there are fires south of the border too.

i just talk to my dad. he told me that my uncle and his family are safe, however, my dipshit uncle stayed at their home last night an is tonight as well. he is in the fallbrook area, and some homes in his neighborhood have been lost. the fire appears to be out of the area right know, but there is concern about one last night of santa anna winds. at least tonight, they are not expected to be as strong.

You know, honestly for several nights before the fires started the newsradio shows kept telling us to perpare for fires because the Santa Anas were coming. It does make one wonder how they knew .... I mean, yes, the Santa Anas come every year, but not fires THIS WICKED. I did in fact buy a ton of extra food and water just based on the radio drilling it into our heads that it was coming before it even started

Is anyone else as suspicious as this as I am?

Hi LS. I'm glad your family made it through okay. Your uncle took a BIG risk by staying in that house ... but a lot of people did and continue to do so because they are not getting a lot of firemen in that area. The local news today showed a TON of very angry residents of San Diego and surrounding area VERY VERY VERY angry because there were literally neighborhoods burning with no fire dept help. Just not enough to go around. I just heard winds in San Diego and surrounding area are 7 miles per hour. That will be a BIG help!

It seems they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. To prepare for a POSSIBLE fire is prudent based on previous years. But then, maybe they shouldn't have been prepared so that they could get the wrath of those who wonder WHY they didn't see it coming. Blah......

I just read that the actual name is Santana winds, not Santa Ana

You read a typo then. It's Santa Ana winds

THANKS!

i actually said to my wife last night, when i heard from my dad that my uncle was making a second trip to his home to get more "valuables", that i hoped he didn't do anything like stay at his home last night. i guess i knew he would do something stubborn, unfortunetly it runs in the family. :-)

'Santa Ana' Winds?
The term "Santa Ana winds" seems to be a mid-20th-century bastardization of the original term, "Santana winds," or "devil winds" — "Santana" being a Spanish variant of "Satan." Most sources attribute its folk etymology (the alteration of an unfamiliar word over time to resemble a more familiar word) to early television news commentators.
These hot, drying winds don't originate in the city of Santa Ana; rather, they occur when the air coming off the desert is squeezed through the mountain passes and is forced in a southeasterly direction toward the ocean. (Their opposite, the colder onshore flow, travels northwesterly from the ocean toward the desert.)
The following explanation is excerpted from the city of Los Angeles Fire Department's official report on the Bel Air Brush Fire of Nov. 6, 1961 (at lafire.com):

The most significant weather factor contributing to the demonic fury of the conflagration which assailed Bel Air and Brentwood was the prevailing wind condition. Called variously "Santanas," "Santa Anas" or "Devil Winds," they are a phenomenon which occurs in the coastal regions of Southern California during the late fall and winter months. These winds are generally characterized by conditions of drastically low humidifies and high velocities. Effects on atmospheric temperatures are dependent upon the state of variable forces which affect the winds during their formation. Usually there is a marked temperature rise, especially if the Santana conditions persist over a prolonged period.
The initial formation of the Santana winds occurs as a large, cold air mass from the polar regions of the Pacific moves south into the arid interior areas of Utah, Nevada and eastern California. From these barren wastes, the mass travels south and south-westward, influenced by atmospheric pressure differentials between the interior areas and the reaches of the Pacific Ocean. As the currents flow across the arid deserts and into the passes and canyons of the coastal mountains, they are dried and heated. Under conditions of moderate barometric gradients, the winds funnel through the passes; compressing to increase velocities to gale force. If pressure gradients are excessive, the winds will pour directly over the mountains to strike the Los Angeles Basin a few miles south of the foothills. In such instances, great clouds of dust are raised to tinge the skies. Temperatures are raised by compressional heating as the wind currents descend to progressively lower levels.
As these winds whip through the mountains and across the surface of the coastal lowlands, every wisp of vegetation and every stick of wood is drained of any vestige of moisture. Relative humidity readings fall ominously and have been recorded as low as three and four percent.
The arrival of these winds on the coastal plain is presaged by clearing skies, starry nights, and a drop in temperatures. As the Santana begins to blow, temperatures rise and the relative humidity plummets rapidly. It is not unusual for Santana conditions to last for a week. With each passing hour, the fire danger increases.



[link to www.scvhistory.com]

People in Julian now on standby for evacuation

Reverse 911 not working

kfmb

The warnings on this particular Santa Ana event were because, a) the weather forecasters were predicting this would be a very severe one with 2 or 3 days of unusually strong winds and very low humidities and b) the drought that has been going on has left everything tinder dry. The fire tearing through the Lake Arrowhead area in the San Bernardino Mtns is made worse by the huge number of dead pines killed in the past few years by pine beetles. So far only the Orange County fire is almost certainly arson caused.
(Scroll down to Ken Clark's blog of Friday the 19th regarding (a)above. Pretty sharp forecaster!)

[link to www.accuweather.com]

[link to www.atmos.ucla.edu]

The Santa Ana Winds
Named after Southern California's Santa Ana Canyon and a fixture of local legend and literature, the Santa Ana is a blustery, dry and warm (often hot) wind that blows out of the desert. In Raymond Chandler's story Red Wind, the title being one of the offshore wind's many nicknames, the Santa Anas were introduced as "those hot dry [winds] that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen." Local legends associate the hot, dry winds with homicides and earthquakes, but these are myths. (See note below regarding naming.)

Another popular misconception that the winds are hot owing to their desert origin. Actually, the Santa Anas develop when the desert is cold, and are thus most common during the cool season stretching from October through March. High pressure builds over the Great Basin (e.g., Nevada) and the cold air there begins to sink. However, this air is forced downslope which compresses and warms it at a rate of about 10C per kilometer (29F per mile) of descent. As its temperature rises, the relative humidity drops; the air starts out dry and winds up at sea level much drier still. The air picks up speed as it is channeled through passes and canyons.

Santa Anas can cause a great deal of damage. The fast, hot winds cause vegetation to dry out, increasing the danger of wildfire. Once the fires start, the winds fan the flames and hasten their spread. The winds create turbulence and establish vertical wind shear (in which winds exhibit substantial change in speed and/or direction with height), both posing aviation hazards. The winds tend to make for choppy surf conditions in the Southern California Bight, and often batter the north coast of Santa Catalina Island, including Avalon cove and the island's airport.

Flare ups from Witch Creek fire causing evacuations West of Julian

200,000 acres, 1% containes Moving W and SW

Harris fire 72,000 acres burned, no homes



kfmb

I could NOT stay in a house that close to a fire. I also live in a mountain house and a fire has threatened our house in the past and when you see that flame and FEEL that heat ... well just every fiber of your being tells you to run like mad. I don't know if he's brave or stupid, but I give him credit for having nerves of steel. I couldn't have done it.

goes to show you can't believe ANYTHING!

tell me about it. my wife and i just went through this last year with her parents. they live in the mountain of wyoming and her father is a volunteer forest fire fighter. the mountain they live on went up last year and her father was on the frontlines for 2-weeks and the fire got less than 1-mile from their home. after making it through the summer this year, i thought we had made it through another fire season with no worries (one short scare with the wife parents again, but only for a day).

i live in the moutains west, but am in a major metropolitan area so i don't have to worry, but i have a view on the mountains out of my livingroom windows and have over the years watched the hills catch fire. i am glad the snow has finally started to fly.

In response to the questions about preparing for the fire a week before it happened.....

The news was broadcasting the potential for extremely low humidity and predicting incoming Santa Ana winds. Preperations were being made "just in case" fires broke out in SD....

In 2003 San Diego had the largest fires in SD history - called The Cedar Fire. I think 50,000 people were evacuated. The county insisted certain areas switch to tile roofing - tile roofs did not help in this fire - the embers went under the eaves and burned the house down.

She predicted a few months ago that there would be people setting fires sometime in the summer or fall of 2007.