Fire blogging on DKos gives a flavor of how desperate

[Fresh_Start]

the situation is.

People were evacuated out of nursing homes and have to be reevacuated.
Large animals were evacuated repeatedly since the areas expected to be safe earlier in the day are now looking threatened.

Fire is expected to reach San Diego city limits before morning.
Fire is expected to continue to burn until it reaches the coast.
Military families are being instructed to pack for evacuation since at least one of the bases are threatened.

All the threads are linked via this mothership thread.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/22/121255/53

[grasswire]

1. link please

This is horrible.

[kas125]

3. I have two close friends out there

one very close to the San Diego fire and my best friend who lives eight or nine miles from the Malibu fire. I am so sad that so many people have lost their homes already and I am hoping that my friends and their families will be safe.

[AlGore-08.com]

2. Not the Kos link - - a link to local (LA) TV station's list of evacuations & closures

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=5719546

[begin_within]

4. Technically, though, it already has reached the city limits of San Diego

because Rancho Bernardo and Rancho Peñasquitos, which burned today, are within the city limits of San Diego. They are districts of San Diego. Poway is a separate, incorporated city, and Rancho Santa Fe is an unincorporated area of San Diego County.

[Fresh_Start]

7. You're right

but I read that they expected the fire to reach city limits by 1AM.
I need to back track and see if it was a specific neighborhood within the city but I missed the reference.

[Liberty Belle]

5. So scary, I would leave town but Dad's in a nursing home here;

airport is clogged with people trying to flee; all flights are full according to a baggage handler I talked with today.

all schools are closed. so are the courts, so deputies can help with evacuations. Almost every community has evacuations or will soon. Fire and smoke everywhere, so thick you can hardly breathe. Desperate situation for those with respiratory illnesses. Many major freeways are closed and others are clogged with traffic.

The Red Cross is running out of volunteers for the shelters.
The stadium and fairgrounds are evacuation centers.

Cause of fires is still under investigation.

Cell phone towers are burned in many areas, Internet service and power are out as well in a lot of places making it hard to communicate.

They are using reverse 911 calls to evacuate people, and that at least is working better than before; during the Cedar Fire most folks never knew there was a fire until it was too late.

The nation's 6th largest county is an inferno, with no end in sight as gale-force winds continue through the night, and our city has run out of resources.

[Theres-a]

6. Chilling.

Stay safe,and thanks for the updates.

[Virginian]

8. My nephew is in ICU in a San Diego Hospital.

Now we have to worry about the fire on top of his health. After what his lungs have been through, he couldn't tolerate smoke right now.

[libnnc]

9. I've got an old high school friend in SD

she was living on base there somewhere with her kids (husband is on ship duty I think).

Just left her a message. I hope they're okay. I didn't realize how close this was to San Diego. :scared:

[Lex1775]

10. Camp Pendelton has reported fires within the base perimeter...

According to my brother-in-law who is stationed at MCAS Miramar. The word they are getting is part of the base housing at Pendelton is being/was evacuated. He and my little sister were evacuated from their home roughly 12 hours ago and told to report to Miramar ASAP. My little sister called, freaking out, that the gate guards at Miramar were in gas masks because the smoke and ash were so bad. They are giving all the Marines stationed there a crash course in fire safety and sending them out to the base perimeter to try and keep the flames at bay. All aircraft able to take off safely were being evacuated to MCAS Yuma and points beyond, according to the brother-in-law.

[Theres-a]

11. K & R

[crispini]

12. My friend lives in Santee -- the fire is less than five miles from her town.

Hope she is OK.