I just had to drive around this thing a couple of times - http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/11/calif.fire.ap/index.html It's pretty crazy. We get a lot of fires, but usually in the summer time, and usually not so close to houses. The crazy thing is that people are more pissed off about traffic than worried about the fire. It's a good 10 miles or so from my house, but we have another one going right now that's about a mile away right on the other side of us.
I just saw that on the news, that sucks. I live in Maine, so it's not really effecting our area too much...
I could see the smoke from my office window in Lake Forest, it was a fairly restricted area with houses along side of the vegetation not mixed in with as you have in the rural areas and beach areas. I had a few coworkers that had their important papers, photos, etc with them yesterday.
My sister lives very close to this area and called me to tell me about the fire when it happened. California always has so many natural disasters they have to deal with - earthquakes, floods, landslides, fires, etc...
I'll take those over hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms, etc. Most California disasters affect only the rich. Fires happen in beautiful hilly areas like Malibu and Laguna Beach or in national forests. Mudslides happen where fires had occurred. Floods happen in rustic areas and if you stay put you are usually safe. Significant earthquakes are kinda rare and except for the epicenter, they are just something to talk about. Compare that to a hurricane or the ten feet of snow upstate New York got this year.
Ten feet of snow sounds fun. idk though, since I live in SoCal as well and the only snow I ever see is in the mountains where it's only like, 1 foot deep.