For those who might not be aware of it, up until early last week, we here in Southern California had been enjoying a surprisingly mild August. But then Mother Nature played one of her typical tricks on us, and turned on the oven. We've been roasting and drying up, with temperatures in the triple digits and humidity down in the single digits. And now, we're on fire...yet again.

Four fires broke out last week, two of them visible from where I live. The other two, one in Hemet (in Riverside County) and in the Palos Verdes Peninsula (right on the Pacific itself) are pretty well contained. One of the two that I could see, burning in the hills above Azusa, is expected to be contained by tomorrow.

But the big one is one that broke out along State Highway 2 above La Canada Flintridge, just north of Pasadena, on Wednesday--the so-called "Station" Fire. This blaze, fueled by the heat and lack of humidity, has scorched close to 36,000 acres as of this morning, and is threatening as many as 10,000 residences from La Canada across the Angeles National Forest to the desert foothill community of Action, as well as the historic Mount Wilson Observatory. Even without the dreaded Santa Ana winds, this fire is eating through a lot of brush-choked land, land that in some cases hasn't burned since 1945! Worst of all, this firestorm is sending up a huge plume of smoke that is making the air very dangerous and maybe even lethal to breathe.

In short, this doesn't look good. As of this morning, only 5% of the fire has been surrounded, and full containment may not come until September 8th.

This is what that fire and its attendant smoke plume look like from a distance: