California wildfire chases thousands from homes
By John Bacon
USA TODAY
A fire tearing through Southern California's Angeles National Forest exploded to more than 40 square miles on Sunday and forced evacuations of an estimated 2,000 homes, authorities said.
Forest Service spokesman Ron Ashdale said the blaze doubled in size overnight as it chewed through dry brush and trees in low humidity and high winds. It was only about 20% contained.
"The weather played a huge role in ths fire," Ashdale said. "Normally a fire will lay down a bit overnight and you can get some containment. This one kept roaring."
Ashdale said the number of personnel battling the blaze also doubled overnight, to about 2,100. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for the Los Angeles County communities of Lake Hughes, Green Valley and Elizabeth Lake, he said. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20130602/NEWS07/306020135/wildfire-california-fire-forest-evacuations
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I've been glued to the newscast and also checking maps for some of the points mentioned.
Looking at the live shots the smoke was really bad....hope it isn't blowing your way. 
I thought The nearest hot spot (shown in the aerial footage) was 12 miles away, but a neighbor just told me it's reached the AV Poppy Reserve 10 miles from here.. And the Red Cross Evacuation Center is closer to me than that, just 4 miles, so my area has to be pretty safe, right?
I took this pic looking North 15 minutes ago:
I will be keeping you and all the others in my thoughts.
I am getting geared up for hurricane season here in TX but now that I have purchased a generatorand other big tix supplies I will probably be safe for the next season or two....or so I hope.
Even though both fires and hurricanes are unpredicatble, the biggest differences between the 2 scenarios is I get a long lead time to prep and with the fire situation it is so fast. Props to the guys and gals that are fighting it, they truly are amazing.
So I'm getting the impression it's pretty huge. If the evacuation centre's closer to you than that, you should be pretty right, though. One of the things I learnt from the fires here was make sure yr house isn't underinsured. When it looked like I was going to lose my home to the fire, I realised I wasn't going to be able to rebuild it, but because my area had already been declared a disaster zone, the insurance companies weren't letting people ring up and up their insurance. Lucky I didn't lose the house, but I would have been so screwed if I had, and ten years on, there's still vacant blocks of land where people were underinsured and couldn't rebuild...
Stay safe
I was told years ago that Aussie firefighters come here each year to help during our fire season, and that's probably reciprocal.
The nearest hot spot looks like it's advanced a bit more Eastward, so it's now about 9 miles due North of me--but the winds have been steadily Eastward and Northward all day, not in my direction.. The greatest danger is to firefighters and other emergency personnel and those people who have remained in their homes despite evacuation orders.
Unfortunately the estimated containment date, originally set for June 5, has now been changed to June 10.
And this message is now displayed in front of one of the homes saved by firefighters:
--Photo by Art Barron, CBS2 News Los Angeles
