And the Devil Winds Came…..

Here are some photos and notes I took during the week of Great California Firestorm….

Day One, Sunday, October 21, 2007:

This was taken late afternoon. Malibu is in the distance. The grey stuff is not fog or clouds; it’s smoke.

This was taken a couple of hours later. Again, this is smoke, not clouds. I did not enhance the colors. In fact, the colors were far more angry and savage than comes out in the image.

 

I snapped these off my TV. These were taken at the other fires in the area. I’ve never seen anything start so suddenly, in so many different places, and escalate so quickly.
I knew then that this would be very bad.

Day Two, Monday, October 22

This is not a very good picture, but I just wanted to show how close to the city one of the wildfires got. This is West Los Angeles and Santa Monica in the foreground. That orange spot in the distance is a hotspot in Malibu. This is only about 16 miles away. This was taken Monday night.

Day 3, Tuesday, October 23

Today, I shot these images on the way to work. You can see the pall of smoke descending over the area. The air quality was very hazardous and we were advised to stay indoors. My eyes, nose and throat became very irritated.

By the afternoon, sickly yellow smoke had completely filled the sky. This was taken from my front porch.

Day Four, Wednesday, October 24

I didn’t take any pictures today. Things were pretty much the same in terms of air quality; however, the firefighter in Malibu were taking the upper hand and the winds were beginning to die down.

Day Five, Thursday, October 25

“Blood Moon”

I went outside about 5:30 this morning to empty my trash. On the way back from the dumpster, I looked up and saw this almost full moon. There is no way this photo can really capture the baleful orange glow. This is absolutely the most trippy thing I’ve ever seen in the sky (except for the UFOs I once saw but that’s another story). This is the perfect Halloween moon!

(I am surmising that the smoke from the wildfires caused this effect.)

I ran inside and grabbed my camera. So there I was, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, in my pajamas, in the dark, snapping pictures.

THEN, to totally freak me out, I hear this very low, quiet voice say “Lori, what doing?” I jumped a foot and a half. The voice was coming from my upstairs neighbor who was sitting in the shadows of his veranda catching some fresh air. I suddenly realized I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, in my pajamas, in the dark, snapping pictures. How embarrassing……..

Full disclosure: I adjusted this image to correct for some blurring around the edges of the moon and I increased the contrast and messed with levels a bit to bring it in line with what I actually saw. Other than that, this is what it was.

Day Six, Friday, October 26

Fog! We have cool, thick, wet, wonderful, glorious fog! I think the Devil Winds are gone……….for now.

To finish up this post, here is a poem I wrote about 10 years ago. Who would have known how prophetic this was going to be:

“El Dia de los Muetos”

Spent from their fiery rampage,
Santa Anas
rest and brood,
flat-lining smoke
over the still indigo of the bay,
a remnant of their holocaust
through the hills. Swollen

pus-yellow moon slowly sinks;
ocherous shafts of dawnlight
prophesy yet another hot
October day,
while Santa Anas,
hot off the desert, wait
for the end of the day.

The devil winds herald
the arrival of the dead–
The Eve of All Hallows
The Day of All Saints
El Dia del los Muertos
From the Hebrides to New Spain
celebrations of death call

for a time of reflection,
a preparation for rebirth,
by the winds of change
that burn the chaff,
nourish the earth,
and make way
for sweet winter rain.

Lori Gloyd, 1997, 2007

Thanks for taking the time to read. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen again for a long time.

Images, text, and poetry: Lori Gloyd (c) 2007