[Dieval]

Quote by: Praxius From looking into the information in the last few days, I certainly hope that wind dies down, because if not, it's just going to clear straight west and across the state. The concentration of each fire will almost be enough to keep it going until all fuel is spent at this point. Yesterday it was all mostly on the East side of California and now it's getting closer to the coast.

We had the santa anna winds blowing east to west, and that's what caused the really big fire to spread extremely fast. Ramona, about 25ish miles east of me up in the hills started Sunday afternoon and by Monday morning, it had covered that distance and was burning just north(maybe 1/2 to 1 mile) of me and other fires are starting up all over because the winds have been knocking down power lines and lighting the brush on fire. FORTUNATELY, the winds are dying down and they're starting to blow west to east and have halted the advance towards the sea, of course this brings other dangers for fireman fighting the fire.

Quote by: The Decider Sonart or Dieval, What is the situation in my old hometown of Oceanside? I heard that the Marines in nearby Camp Pendleton have evacuated. Is that area under threat now?

I've heard that pendalton has some fires a ways up north of Oceanside, but haven't heard anything about Oceanside specifically.

Quote by: The Decider I'm also very concerned about some friends in Rancho Bernardo. They lived on the crest of a beautiful, but heavily overgrown, ravine. Did that entire community burn, or just pockets?

I've heard about 300 houses in RB were destroyed, but the fire jumped around a lot and it would get a group of houses here, one over there, 2 over there, etc, etc, so it'd be hard to say. I provided a link to the areas that have burned at the bottom of this post. I'm in the very southern part of RB myself, and it seems to be fairly untouched, by just north of here, it's pretty bad. I'm not TECHNICALLY supposed to be back, we're still under mandatory evacuation, but the major damage seems to be done in RB..it's up in Escondido right now, right by Lake Hodges/Del Dios area.

Quote by: The Decider What about the towns of Vista and San Marcos?

SM had a pretty good size fire, right by CSUSM, but it was quite small by comparison to the rest. Haven't heard anything about Vista.

Quote by: The Decider I also heard news that the Santa Ana winds have died down a bit. Is that true?

YES, thankfully! But it will be Thursday before they expect them to totally be gone. From Sunday night to Monday morning, the winds didn't die down at night, as they usually do, which just showered MILES and MILES with embers and it just spread uncontrollably.
There was also a fire at the wild animal park, which burned part of the grounds but I believe they caught that one pretty quick...I'd hate to have to move a Rhino out of the fire area.

Quote by: The Decider I wish y'all the very best during this emergency. As a native Californian, I know first hand how scary and devastating these autumn fires can be. I once helped my family hose down our shake roof at 4:00 am in the morning as burning embers rained down upon us.

That's scary, and I know that since the cedar fire in 2003, I don't believe that you can even get a shake roof any more, but even the houses with tile roofs were burning in RB....supposedly it was from openings under the eves where the embers went in to...

Quote by: The Decider I'll take an earthquake over a brush fire any day. They are truly awesome and scary things to behold.

With all the fires, smoke, ash around here now, I'll buy that. They're calling this the worst fire in SD history and I'll buy that as well.

This seems to be a fairly accurate map of the fire - Google Maps (looks like Isher posted very similar map to this one)