San Diego is on fire. The whole situation is a little surreal considering that I do live in an area that is near the fires. The air is very smoky and ashy. Its hard to breathe outside and it is irritating on the eyes too. I can’t believe how large the fires are and how quickly and vastly they have spread. On Sunday afternoon, I realized that it looked kind of red outside and as I went outside, I could smell the smoke. None of us thought the fires were nearby. We knew there was a fire somewhere, but we had no idea that we would be packing our things and leaving the house.

Sunday night I had still planned on going to work and going about my normal activities the next day. However, my roommate made me a little nervous as he contemplated packing his stuff and was saying that the fire would be in the area by like 2am. I slept fine that night and got a phone call at about 5am from my coworker asking how I was doing. At that point I still didn’t know the severity of it. I woke up and watched the news for about an hour. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t really fall asleep. All of my roommates were up around 6-7am all watching TV. The fires had come a lot closer and the area just north of us had been evacuated. Houses <1 mile from my office were burning down. One of my roommates left around 3pm and my roommate and I left later that evening. It was surreal thinking of what things I wanted to pack and bring with me. Also imagining everything being burned and gone forever was a little stressful. Since I had did have time to pack my things, I took a lot of my clothes, photos, keepsakes, my computer, my snowboard, and my guitar. To think as we left that this place could be gone was unreal.

I was able to stay at a friends house in La Jolla for the past two nights. The air over there is still bad even though it is further away. It’s been two days and it looks like we can return back to the house. The area by work is still under mandatory evacuation and our offices were open. How ridiculous is that?! I went there today to email myself a few files and it was so smoky and difficult to breathe and see. I can’t believe there were people actually working in the office. Its insane.

So many people lost their homes and so many people have been evacuated. I don’t think these fires are going to end very soon.

Please keep your thoughts and prayers with the people in San Diego as well as with the firefighters who are doing their best to protect people and homes.