I've been away for a couple of weeks. One week during a fire related evacuation from my home in San Diego, and the second week recovering and getting things back on track.

The fires were incredible. In many ways more spectacular than the 2003 fires. If you're not from So Cal, you may not be aware of the Santa Ana winds we have hear in the fall. They are winds that blow from East to West, and they are very dry and often get heated as they cross the deserts.

You may be familiar with high winds that reach 50 mph or more, possibly even while it's raining. Imagine that same 50 mph wind, but instead of water, it has fire and burning embers flying around and it's already close to 90 degrees outside.

The Witch Creek fire started near Santa Isabel, nearly 50 miles inland, and moved at close to 10 mph at times. (That's fast for a often times 50 foot wall of fire.) It burned almost all the way to the coast and turned around and went back. It missed my house by less than half a mile in one small burned area, but the major fire missed me by a couple of miles.

These fires are a natural cycle in this part of the country. Unfortunately, the environmental groups do not want to allow thinning, (either by letting some fires burn or by allowing people to go in and remove dead wood or what ever), and they don't want you clearing your yard of fuel, err, I mean underbrush.

Add that to the fact that CAL FIRE got their collective priorities ef'd up and wouldn't allow military fliers to fight the fire until they used up their "private" contractors first, who were too chicken-shit to fly in the wind.

CAL FIRE changed their name from CDF (California Department of Forestry) because they did this same crap in 2003 (not letting military fly even though they're better at flying AND fighting fires than the CDF ever could be) and don't want to be remembered.