We had a long sleepless night yesterday. A huge wild fire broke out in the afternoon and continued through the night one canyon east of R's cabin. Luckily we have the wind (or lack thereof) in our favor and it's very slow moving. Hundreds of houses close to us were evacuated, but we have been lucky.

The helicopters and planes that drop the water don't fly after dusk, so the night is always a different story. Yesterday afternoon it did not look so bad, and then in the night it flared up and now half of the mountain was charred and the fire has jumped the canyon. The helicopters started up again at dawn and this was the sunrise. Full of smoke and dark.

The fire is still not out, but it looks very well contained from where we are. Fingers crossed the wind stays down tonight again.