The Fire
Here are a few photos taken of the "Cedar Fire" from the front of our house in Scripps Ranch on Sunday, October 26th, 2003. The fire burned homes within a mile of us but our street was untouched and not ordered to evacuate. Thanks to all our friends and family who called and emailed expressing their concern. Other than lots of ashes and smoky air, everything here at our house is OK. Others were not so fortunate. Hundreds of homes (latest official estimate: 385) burned to the ground in Scripps Ranch and hundreds more in other parts of San Diego County and the State.
These files are 400KB +/-, so may take a moment to open.
These photos appear in the order in which they were taken during the day. In the morning the whole sky to the south and east was dark with smoke while the sky above us and to the north and west was still blue.
At times we could see the glow from the flames reflected in the smoke.
At other times the smoke turned dark grey, almost black.
We were fortunate that the winds were westerly and southwesterly so that the fire and most of the smoke traveled to the south of us. The homes that burned were mostly along the southern and eastern perimeter of Scripps Ranch, areas that are adjacent to large tracts of undeveloped land.
We had a hazy smoke-tinted sunshine most of the day.
At times the fire and smoke seemed to be quite close.
In the center of this photo you can actually see flames in a ridge to the south of Scripps Ranch.
This is a satellite image taken from The San Diego Union-Tribune website http://www.signonsandiego.com/#
Also taken from that website is the map below which shows the relative locations of the fires as of 9:00 PM Monday. I've added a reference to "our house" on it.
There are many more photos at the website of the Scripps Ranch Civic Association.