DeCal Update, Fires in Los Angeles

The DeCal page is now up.

More information will be posted on this blog, yes, I do indeed plan on podcasting all the classes. The page can be found here.

On a personal note, the fires that are blazing through Los Angeles have been on my mind a lot over the past two days. It wouldn't have been possible to anticipate how wide the fire has spread, but my mother's house is in one of the mandatory evacuation zones as of 2 am Sunday morning and until now 1am Monday morning. And, my hometown of La Crescenta is one of those neighborhoods that are threatened by the fire. I came across this piece of work here in the Los Angeles Times, a publication that I have been critical of in the past:

At its southwestern flank, the fire is spreading actively in the foothills above
the 210 Freeway, from Altadena to Little Tujunga. Officials said they had four
control objectives for the day:
-- Keep the fire west of Mt. Wilson Road
-- Keep it south of Highway 14.
-- Keep it east of Interstate 5.
-- Keep it north of both Foothill Boulevard and Altadena Drive (Firefighters predict another difficult day as they battle blaze on multiple fronts Los Angeles Times)

I mean, I don't know if the situation is that desparate, though it looks pretty bad or if its a typo or if its probably the least ambitious goal I've ever seen. Though I fear I am treading on hallowed ground here by criticizng the firefighting effort, that statement right there should and probably would induce panic in a lot of people -- I believe it is an extreme case of irreponsible journalism.

If I were to criticize all four of those statements together, it would sound even worse as that's a huge stretch of land right there, but if just all the houses above Foothill Boulevard were lost, then that's half of La Crescenta and La Canada-Flintridge, not to mention the neighboring suburbs of Tujunga, Sunland, and Altadena. Twelve thousand homes as one publication put it. My family has lived there for more than two decades now and I've never seen this before nor have I seen such a lackluster goal before.

The Los Angeles Times does provide an "interactive map."