Just thought I'd share a couple of photos I took the first night of the so-called "Santiago" arson fire, Saturday, October 21, 2007. Charms and I were driving home from about 20 minutes away when we first spotted flames and enormous plumes of smoke rising from the top of a very distant hill. I joshingly suggested it was the hill across from our abode, and it wasn't until we were off the freeway heading toward home that we discovered how near it really was.

This was a horrible tragedy for so many people and we have so much respect and appreciation for all the firefighters and volunteers that have and continue to help protect homes and lives. It disgusts me to no end that the same type of [expletive deleted] who believe vehemently in 9/11 conspiracies are now also contending that these fires were all started by firefighters themselves because they wanted to collect overtime pay.

This is a shot from the Woodbury Town Center down the street. Notice all the onlookers. The streets were actually lined with parked cars. If many were like us, they were watching to get a handle on how worried we needed to be.

This is from a little while later after the flames spread eastward. The series of lights at the bottom of the hill line a toll road. This burning came as close as just feet away from homes in the village of Portola Springs just on the other side of the road.

News coverage seems to have died down, but the fire is still currently burning 9 days later, homes are still being evacuated, and it isn't expected to be squelched before Friday. Wouldn't it be nice if the genius engineers in this country could designed a "bomb" that would suck the oxygen out of a large area or otherwise smother it with massive force.