Kitty, please stay safe!

It's not so close to me but there is the smell of smoke very heavy in the air and it made the sky dark yesterday. The wind was hot and strong with humidity below 10 percent. Some of us here were close to the fire and prepared to evacuate yesterday and last night. Northern CA is so much worse.

I was worried about how many Houzz CA gardening contributors are affected by all these huge fires. I evacuated in Aug with my pets due to a quick growing fire which fortunately was contained at 400 acres, but it could easily have grown into the horrific scenes shown on the news stations. What is particularly striking is watching the actual homes burning away while there is greenery seemingly untouched around them.

It was good to wake up to a heavy marine layer and onshore air flow. I have friends who were evacuated and I hope they can return to their homes soon. So sad for the people who lost their homes. It's a beautiful area.

I woke up early Monday morning (around 2am) and smelled heavy smoke coming in through my bedroom window. It was bad enough that I got up to make sure that the fire wasn't coming from my yard or my house. Pretty scary! Found out it was from the fires in Santa Clara and in Napa. Stay safe folks.

The Mexican fan palms that were on fire looked like waving tiki torches in that wind. They were so tall that the fire hoses barely reached them. That's not a plant you want in a fire danger area. My home is a Japanese style and had a pretty shake roof but I'm so happy its gone. I want a hobbit house with a green hill for a roof!

I'm so relieved for you hoovb. Did you put any plants in the car just in case? I could see myself loading pots on my trailer until the last get out now time.

Looking at Santa Rosa makes me ill.

Please stay safe Gardenweb forum folks in southern and northern California. We went through the 500 acre Topanga-Calabasas fire in June 2016, very scary.

Hoovb, the building code is still pretty minimal wrt external fire. Screens are the bare minimum. There are now vent louvers that have a pin that holds them open that will melt in a fire and automatically close the vent louvers. There are also window shutters that work the same way and can be mounted in the eaves. Garages are the worst though. It is very difficult to keep embers out of a garage door and then there's plenty of flammable material in there.

It's horrible - humans dead, countless animals both wildlife and pets, property and livelihoods destroyed... my heart breaks.

I've been thinking about all of you north and south affected by these fires - especially those in NoCal in there Calistoga and Napa areas with so much death and widespread destruction with no end in sight. Absolutely devastating, and hard to wrap my mind around so many homes .... neighborhoods, nearly an entire town... gone.

Anyone know about Al in Calistoga? I don't hang out here as much as I used to, and I recall him as a regular here with wonderful advice.

We live close to some fires in recent years... the Williams Camp fire, and other one that spread from many miles away to just a mile from our house.

Napapen also hasn't been around for a week or so ... hoping all's well for both her and Al. The entire town of Calistoga is under mandatory evacuation.