Things seem to be improving today, with fire fighters finally able to get in and fight the flames, with the winds improving. Still very hot, though that's supposed to improve tomorrow. But air quality is worsening, and as the winds die down, should actually get worse, as all the smoke blown out over the ocean returns. Only one fatality so far, so at least by the most important yardstick, this isn't as bad as the Cedar fire. Acres burned will certainly exceed Cedar, but I'm not sure about homes lost.

School's canceled for the week. Library reopened today, with limited hours, so I'm about to go in for my volunteer shift. My tutoring session this morning was canceled. No word yet on if work will be closed Friday; being part of the campus, it should be closed, but we'll see.

Felt absolutely awful yesterday, barely able to function, but today I don't feel too bad. Probably because I haven't been outside; we'll see how I feel after I head down to the library (I just heard on the news it's 100 degrees in El Cajon).

I just got back from Qualcomm Stadium, where they are expecting over 100,000 evacuees tonight. Dropped off some water and food, and was happy to see lots of private and corporate citizens were making donations; Costco was bringing in huge truckloads of water. I recommend bringing your own handcart if you bring donations, as it's hard to park very close to gate P, where they're taking donations. Lugging in the water wasn't too difficult, but with the poor air quality, I really felt like crap once I'd hauled it all in (fortunately, a Marine helped me with the last few cases of water).

But yeah, the air is definitely bad. Even here in La Mesa, where the sky is still, inexplicably, blue, the air is deceptively poor. Just going out to breakfast, I found my eyes burning.

Fallbrook is under a mandatory evacuation, now, and parts of Chula Vista have a voluntary evacuation advisory. Solana Beach has been advised to prepare to evacuate. Still, very little can be done to directly fight the fire; the goal now just seems to keep the fire from reaching to the ocean. UCSD, like all schools in the county, will remain closed tomorrow, since it seems extremely inadvisable to leave your home if you don't have to.

UCSD, like many schools in the county, is closed today. The fires shifted dramatically to the west since I went to bed last night, with homes burning in Rancho Bernardo, and large regions to the west of the I-15 have been evacuated. The evacuation area north of the 56 extends all the way to I-5. Sheriff Kolender describes things as "worse than the Cedar fire." I haven't heard of any more deaths, though, which is fortunate.

The odd thing is, while there is definitely smoke here, the air quality in La Mesa isn't bad at all. Driving home from work yesterday, as I passed through Mission Valley, the sky was black to the north and west, but past there the sky suddenly turned clear blue. Things are a bit smokier today, but still fairly blue, though from my back yard I can see menacing smoke in the distance. But nothing like what I'm seeing on the news.

One dead in San Diego fires. It also appears that the Santa Ysabel fire has overtaken the Potrero fire, with over 3000 acres burned.

Fire consumes 2500+ acres near Potrero, 70 miles east of San Diego. I've called around town, and elsewhere there's no sign of smoke, but apparently the Santa Ana winds are funneling the smoke right to La Jolla. The air quality is reminiscent of the Cedar fire of 2003, though not nearly as bad--soot doesn't seem to be making the 70 mile trek, so it's just smoke we're dealing with, and I rather doubt I'll find an inch of ash on my car when I leave work today. But it is still quite poor air quality here in La Jolla, and I anticipate things will be getting worse in the near term; this is really the first day of the Santa Ana, and already two fires are burning in the county. Should various fires start meeting up, as they did with the Ceder fire, things could be unpleasant.