Yesterday afternoon the air at our house was fairly clear, but last night the smoke settled down into the valley, as it’s been doing the last couple of days.  It’s the densest smoke we’ve had so far, and it extends much further.  Yesterday, the smoke was hugging the mountain; down the hill, the air was much clearer.  This morning I took a drive down through La Canada to Pasadena, and then along the 134 Freeway back to Glendale and then back up to La Crescenta; and there was smoke everywhere.  It was a little clearer along the 134.

We didn’t evacuate over night, though I had a scare early in the morning; a little after 2:30 a police car flashed its lights and ran its siren for a few seconds outside our house and moved on.  I jumped out out of bed, cried “It’s time!” and almost got everybody up.  But we checked the web, and called the emergency information center in Glendale, and discovered that we were still outside the evacuation zone; as indeed we remain.

I gather that the fire is still burning, over toward Pickens Canyon and on the ridges above us; after all, where there’s smoke there’s fire, and there’s certainly smoke.  But the smoke is so thick and so diffuse (and so widespread) that I’ve been completely unable to get any idea where the fire is.

I’ve been listening to KNX 1070 since around 3 AM.   Most of the news is about Acton in the Antelope Valley–the fire ran north over night, all the way across the San Gabriels.  There’s been very little that’s new about La Crescenta, though there have been a few mentions of the fire being about 200 yards above the corner of Ocean View and Castle Road in La Canada.  I suppose no news is good news.

It’s supposed to hot again today, over 100, with winds around 10 miles per hour.  I know the winds are bad for the fire fighter, but I’d dearly love to have this smoke cleared away.

Finally, all Glendale schools are closed tomorrow (it was supposed to be the first day of school).  The school district will be deciding when to open the schools on a day-to-day basis.

Update: the City of Glendale has lifted the mandatory evacuation of homes about Santa Carlotta from Pennsylvania to Lowell, which is very good news. On the other hand, the neighborhood above Harmony from Briggs to Pennsylvania is now under mandatory evacuation; that’s about three blocks above our house. Not so good.