Last night I got a phonecall about a power outage in Santa Barbara. I put the post on the wrong thread
before I realized a fire had caused the outage. Daybreak I could see the smoke 80 miles away and by this afternoon there was smoke and bad air conditions. Freezing temperatures and inverted atmospheric conditions seem to be shoving the smoke to the ground here in the Santa Ynez Valley.
Feels kinda funky to breath .
We have been in a unrelenting drought in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Yes we got average rains here last winter but it in no way stopped the tree die off that has taken out millions of live oaks on Southern exposed hillsides. It has to contribute to the ferocity of these fires , dead dry oaks burning differently from live ones. The live oaks will often survive fast burning fires and produce new leaf come spring. I expect the heat of burning all that dead wood will result in extra live oak mortality on the Southern exposed hillsides.
We expect fires during Santa Ana conditions. Living in the canyons , in oak habitat , comes with risks.
I live in the flatlands by the river on agriculture land. It never , well never in the seventeen years I've lived here, blows Santa Ana here where I live. It does however freeze under these conditions and today I was fixing freeze damage on hoses that popped late night.
We need rain