L.A. Fire Threatens Hollywood Sign, Bathes City in Flattering Amber Light

Here are some snaps of last Friday's dramatic brush fire up in Griffith Park. When I first saw the mushroom cloud (while pumping gas on Silver Lake Blvd. near the 101N on-ramp) I thought my house on the nearby hill could be on fire. In a panic I drove back home and was relieved to see the smoke was much further away. In fact, as you can see in this photo taken near my home at the time, I discovered that the disaster hit the Valley! Could a plane taking off from Burbank airport have crashed? Might one of the studios been bombed by a terrorist attack? (No such luck) Could a fissure on the San Andreas Fault unleashed a new volcano and began the first reel of our glorious Apocalyptic end?

No, just two teenagers from Illinois playing with fireworks on the edge of Griffith Park which resulted int the destruction of about 160 acres... and killed God knows how many poor birds and animals! Those kids should be put in stocks in the middle of Universal City Walk and made to feel the ire of the populus! OR be forced to recover every animal burned in that terrible fire! And plant every tree, bush and wildflower destroyed!

I tuned into 1070 AM, the all-news radio station as I drove to LAX to pick up my Dad (who is visiting for the week). But before that I stopped to get the car washed -- life must go on here in La La Land you know -- and I got these dramatic shots from Beverly Blvd. near Western.

We are going to be in big trouble out here in SoCal if we don't a little moisture in the air soon. And with the 'rainy season' practically over it sure as Hades don't look good for us here in Tinsel, uh, I mean Tinderstick Town. Still, the amber hue cast by the sunlight refracted through the ash was otherwordly cool. And made all of us look ten years younger! Who needs Botox when you got global warming?

(There was a lot of 'stop the car photojournalism' going on that day - and plenty of video of the fire you can see here!)