Does anyone here live in the Santa Cruz area, I just saw on the news that there is an out of control wildfire in the mountains. Just wondering if it is close to Scotts Valley or more “over the hill”?
Crazy wacky weather here in S. Cal., just saw that a tornado touched down near Moreno Valley. Here in PS, we went from 113 degrees on Monday to dark and stormy today, with snow falling up on the highest peaks of Mt. San Jacinto.
I wonder if the wrath of Father Archuleta has anything to do with this…
Yeah, no shit. We had a squall drop an inch of rain in less than 10 minutes, which triggered huge mudslides in last year’s burn areas.
So far today, we’ve had sunshine, warmth, clouds, black clouds, thunder, lightning, snow, hail and tornadoes. WTF? What’s next? The Loch Ness Monster surfacing in front of my parents’ beach house?
As for the fire, last I heard it was burning in the mountains right between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties and was uncontained. But that was a while ago- surely they’re getting a handle on it by now…
Scotts Valley appears to be safe for now - it’s one of the evacuation sites for animals.
Last I’d heard, the fire is believe to have started from a legal burn a few days ago that smoldered until re-igniting. Currently, it’s only about 15% contained.
No shit about the weather. Wednesday was so gusty that I thought another sailor might be swept out to sea, which happened about a month ago. It was a nasty cold offshore wind. I think gusts were over 60mph. I barely made it home from the Laker game on my bicycle. I almost got off and walked!
Here is a story on the fire in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and here is a map of the fire.
There’s an immense cloud of smoke from the fire, when I saw it this morning I thought it was a fog bank, and this afternoon the smoke was all the way out over the ocean.
At 8:30 this morning I could see the smoke from Milpitas. The news this afternoon said that it was 3,000 acres and growing. Happily, no one has been injured.
It is only about 30-40 miles south of where we live (also in the Santa Cruz Mountains closer to Los Gatos) and yet there has not been a wisp nor a sniff of smoke here, as it is all blowing south and out to sea, I believe. Down in Sunnyvale at work today, though, there was definitely some smoke in the air, but I’m pretty sure it was from another fire farther north.
On of my cow-orkers is the member of a volunteer fire company that serves another area of the Santa Cruz mountains and the last report he relayed to me this afternoon was that 10-12 structures had reportedly been lost at that time. Thankfully it is not densely populated up here, not to dismiss any of the losses that have indeed been suffered.