Santiago Canyon Fire in Irvine, California

posted by lucky760 1 decade 7 years 3 weeks ago • 1,523 views
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.

Here's a short clip I found on YouTube that starts at the corner where the first photo above was taken and ends around where the second was taken. It gives you a little bit of an idea of the wanton disregard in the air for what was to come.

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.

5 Comments

thesnipe says...

Wow lucky that is really close. If it wasn't for the tragedy involved I'd go on about the almost surreal photography that came from the fires.

The news seems to have "had their fill" with the coverage, but from my experience they always leave when shelter and emergency ops are still in full swing.

Are you seeing any raining ash where you are? The last wildfire we had here I was working outside and my first thought was "wow it's early for sno....oh crap"

Now that idea for a bomb...you're really onto something there

dotdude says...

Those are nice photos even if the subject is a sad one.

I guess there's probably a smell in the air too. Down this way you can smell marsh fires ocaissionally.

lucky760 says...

It was closer than it looks. From where those people in the first photo were standing to the actual flames was probably 200-300 yards, but still enough to make you ponder packing up.

Oh yeah, for I think all of last week there was just constant ash-fall seemingly everywhere in Orange County. The air has been constantly unbreathable until the last couple of days and now the bad air comes and goes and is restricted to the area around my home.

I wonder what a marsh fire might smell like. The terminology sounds like it could be a nice "mallow" scent. Are there many fires in swampland dotdude? Seems from all the moisture it wouldn't be easy tinder.

Thanks for the link, MG, but I was thinking of something less destructive. On MythBusters the other day I saw them detonate high explosives next to a very large flame to successfully put it out. Food for thought.

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