My Neighborhood is on Fire.
2007-05-09/2:16 a.m.

Holy crow, our neighborhood is on fire!

This afternoon I heard that Griffith Park was on fire via text message to my friend who sits behind me. It was weird and you could see the smoke over my office. But when I left at 7 they were saying that it was mostly contained and that they'd even stop dropping water on it after dark.

Boy were they wrong. By 8 people were being evacuated and whole areas were losing power. I was driving home and saw flames on the hill just north of us, which was scary enough. Once darkness fell you could see huge flames and the sky was lit up in orange. I didn't like it at all, I got nervous and squirmy. These CA fires aren't for me.

Here is a blurry picture that I took from my car:
griffith park fire

I didn't take any of the orange sky because I was too busy thinking of going to a different neighborhood to sleep or what we'd save if the fire went crazy. Mike settled on his computer. Yeah, we have very little of value here, it's true.

It seems a little lower now but the beautiful park looks so sad and burned out. The big trees are mostly dead. It is a very pretty and awesome park and a lot of it was ruined today, which is really sad. And the news just said that the fire was started by someone who lit a cigarette and then fell asleep and then woke up burning. He's in the hospital.... Idiot. Because of him over 600 acres of awesome has burned and many people are without power and who knows how many animals died (no people deaths have been reported yet). The LA Zoo is in this park and they were trying to evacuate it but then the news said that zookeepers were staying at the zoo to get the animals out if it turned back east, but it hasn't appeared to yet. That would be wild- huge animals being moved through the middle of the city.

This fire is bizarre because it's right in the middle of the city really. Not the outskirts where these things tend to happen. Here is an article that was written before night when the fire really spiralled out of control: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fire9may09,0,532284.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Scary. I don't like this part of the LA initiation process. Watching homeless people pee on the subway wasn't fun either, but I'd take it in a second over this. Clearly, we're fine. I'm able to post this which means that our power hasn't gone out and we haven't been evacuated. It's just hot as heck and gross outside. Not fun, but it could be worse. The ash tomorrow will probably be awful.

And now the park will be all dead all summer and probably for the next several years, which is depressing. I love that park! One of the best places in the world is up there- the Griffith Park Observatory. Famous for it's role in Rebel without a Cause and newly reopened after many years of renovations. Around 8:30 the fires headed towards it and that really made me panic. It's 11:40 now though and it's safe still so that's good news. Even if it sits on top of a completely burned out ridge now.








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