Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains: Breaking News

I have a cam up - you can see a view of the smoke from Gilroy

...and still burning

As of 12:00 p.m., Closed roads:

Eureka Canyon Road

Corralitos Road

Varni Road

Browns Valley Road

Amesti Road

Pioneer Road

Conditions are extremely windy and clear and the fire has moved fast.

That's a nice camera feed. You can see how windy it is with the tree, and the smoke billowing. Is that aimed towards the west, so the smoke moving leftwards is going towards the south? I can't quite picture where you are.
Where I am, it was particularly windy yesterday.

One question I had was what the microclimate was where the fire is. The redwoods- Santa Cruz side of the mountain tends to get 10 more inches of rain than western San Jose, and you can sort of see this in their chaparral plants.
Places like Oakland have had S. Calif. style firestorms before, but this was always during autumn Santa Ana winds.
This is a northeast dry wind which is lowering the humidity, but it is impressive to me that one of the areas which tends to be wettest is where the fire is spreading so quickly in May. It almost makes you wonder if a fire would be possible in a spot like Humboldt/S. Oregon.

It's a very dry microclimate in the entire area where the fires are spreading. Native meadow-like, brush-covered lands and VERY dry. There are edges of this area that are surrounded by redwoods, but the majority of the area is very dry and tinder like. Terrible!

Also, from Aptos, as you look down South from Highway 1 just off the Freedom Exit, there is thick smoke that makes visibility very poor.

No word yet as to containment.

Two schools have been dismissed early (PVUSD) and several others are allowing parents to pick up early.

This map is interesting to look at, if you zoom in on the Monterey area on the pdf, and can then compare with the higher risk San Diego areas. I guess the eastern slope of the mountains are supposed to have higher potential in general, but the area isn't particularly high risk during normal years.

http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/webdata/maps/statewide/fthreat_map.pdf

May 22, 2008

To: UCSC Community
Fr: Public Information Office
Re: Fire Information

In response to today's fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains, campus staff have
added road and other information to the campus's Emergency Management web
site (http://emergency.ucsc.edu). The site also contains links to local
government information as well as local and regional media sites containing
coverage of the fire.

Please stay informed by visiting that site. Thank you.

To protect students from poor air quality, Pajaro Valley Unified School District will close all schools and district offices.

For more information, see http://www.pvusd.net

Last night, from moon rocks in Bonny Doon, you could see the orange glow of the fire illuminated in the smoke. As gusts fanned the fire, you could see actual flames leaping hundreds of feet into the air from almost 20 miles away.

Sorry I don't have a photo to share.

wouldn't look so pretty if it was your house in Felton, that was burning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvOH4o54n_M