The world is on fire.

It was Sunday, when I was heading home after a few quick errands, that I first noticed the grey haze descending on Mira Mesa. I’ve been Southern California long enough to recognize it for what it was – fire. City officials had been warning people for a few weeks of the extreme fire hazard, but nobody pays attention. Cigarettes are thrown out of windows and camp-fires are lit with no planning, so the fire was no surprise. It wasn’t until I started checking the news feeds that the scale of the flames struck me.

Another goddamn firestorm.

One day later and I’m in North Park, where the air is clean, living out of a bag. There hasn’t been an evacuation of Mira Mesa, but the comunity is right on the edge of areas that have been cleared. I’ve no real worry about the house itself – if the fire manages to get to it, northern San Diego is lost.

The official county feeds are useless. They’re either overwhelmed or behind the news, with the occasional crashes being restored using day-old data. KPBS has been pretty good, but their main transmitter was slagged sometime this morning. 94.9 let KPBS use their frequency, though, so it’s still possible to keep tabs on everything.