San Diego Fires
mbietz October 23rd, 2007
If you’re interested in tracking the progress of the San Diego fires, some of the most up-to-date info seems to be at the Union Tribune web site, although their servers have been pretty overloaded. The most recent news updates are at the Fire Blog. There’s a relatively recent (and frequently updated) Google Maps mashup that shows the boundaries of the fires and the evacuation areas.
I’m in Ann Arbor right now, but planning to fly back in to San Diego this evening. The airport is running as usual and is planning to remain open.
We live in the very center of San Diego, very near Qualcomm Stadium (one of the main evacuation centers). That puts us east of I-5, west of I-805, and just south of I-8. We’re essentially on the south rim of Mission Valley, and just north of Balboa park.
As for now, our area has not been evacuated, and the closest evacuated areas are many miles away. I just talked to Dan and apparently there is a slight smell of smoke in the air, but otherwise things are normal at our house.
One issue highlighted by the fire officials is that predicting the exact path is a problem because the Santa Ana winds tend to be inconsistent, and over the next couple of days are expected to turn around and head back inland.
So for now our house isn’t in the path of the fire, but it’s wait and see. I’ll post here again if there’s any major change in our status.