not here, not ever
September 3, 2009
Watching it, I thought, holy shit, I have never seen anything in my life like that. Well, not since I was driving through a burning rain forest, that got kind of out of hand and being in an open top jeep did not help but — no. Not here. Not ever. Then I asked my second father, Have you seen anything like this? He grew up here too, moreso than I did since we moved all the time when I was a kid. And also he is older than I am so you know, has seen more. And he said no. Not here. Not ever. And now newspapers say it. Which are probably run by people who were not even born here and did not grow up here. But they have charts and graphs. And they say, No. Not here. Not ever. Not like this.
:::more photos:::
:::la times fire map:::
:::mt. wilson observatory webcam:::
*as of 9 pm sept 2 shambala preserve is holding
*mt. wilson observatory webcam is down
*at this posting 150,000 acres burned
*my thanks to the firemen and firewomen holding the line, you are the reason the entire los angeles basin is not in flames
where those photos come from :
those are from los angeles times
celluloid blonde 
Wow. I’ve spent quite a few memorable vacations in LA. This is incredible.
Wow. Just, wow. The picture of the fireman slumped against the wall – I’ll be thinking about the firemen all day.
Gorgeous photos–I know, I know. They’re of bad things but so beautifully shot that they bring an ache to my throat.
Beautiful prose–I know, I know– about bad things. But said so concisely yet poetically that I’ll think about the fires all day.
The firemen & firewomen are pulling 18+ hour shifts and then when they do break for sleep they just lie down on the truck half the time and it is a hundred degrees out there before you add fire and smoke. They are amazing.
Kym, they are beautiful photos. Just amazing. I talked to a photographer for a newspaper once and I said, isn’t it hard to take photos every day that you know next week will be lining a bird cage or something? And he made a joke about disposable art.
Such memorable images. Stay safe Max.
They are, I only get credit with rounding them up the real credit goes to the L.A. Times photographers who took them. [I have been pretty mad at L.A. Times for their appalling coverage of the WGA strike but I can almost forgive them when I see their coverage of the fires.]
By the way, I experienced true rage today. A teabagger started yelling some lie online that Obama was responsible for the California fires and I just about lost it. To use this shocking terrible fire that is destroying lives and homes and try to stamp it with some cheap politically motivated lie to deceive people and perpetrate more political disinformation that is so injurious — to use THIS FIRE to do that? I have not experienced that kind of true anger in a long long time.
Teabaggers. Oh my.
We’re fighting for them too, I wish they realized that.
My God, we might save their home if a family member is struck down with catastrophic illness! How dare we! Don’t we know those insurance companies need to rake in millions on the backs of working Americans and provide nothing, NOTHING, no health service of any kind at all, for that 30% cut off the top that goes to Wall Street & private jets and a handful of morally bankrupt CEO’s salaries?
It is like Harriet Tubman said: I could’ve freed more of my people if I could have convinced them they were slaves.
Did you see the clip of a woman in a wheel chair being booed and heckled at a town hall meeting? Grown men heckling a crippled woman in a wheelchair.
I am shamed by that as an American.
I did see that crippled woman heckled and was disgusted and at a loss for words. I was going to blog it, but it upset me too much to even do that.
Ms. Max,
While California is experiencing the fire from near and afar, just know that every freaking summer day in Phoenix feels like hell.
Beautiful photos. Beautiful and ugly.
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