The fires, at least the ones that were near me, are out or under control. Some of the fire to the north still burns, and still threatens structures in some places, but the 24 hour news coverage, thankfully, went away days ago. In my neck of the woods, we had one day of bad smoke, with a small amount of ash fall. We were fine the rest of the time. Tuesday night, we were unable to play racquetball because all the places we could play were closed. That night was the creepiest, because I could see the fire's red glow beyond the ridge line to the south of me. Everything was back open by the time we went to play Friday night, though. The above photo was taken Wednesday morning from work, after the winds changed, bringing the smoke towards us. Here's the view from the alley behind my apartment. The first photo looks north, showing a brown haze hugging the horizon.

The next photo looks south, showing a brown cloud bank that is actually smoke from the nearer fire.

It smelled, too. The major fire to the North was called the "Witch Fire", so named after its origin, Witch Creek. I suggested to a friend that a timely and humorous Halloween costume might be to dress as a witch on fire, and thus, the Witch Fire. Aren't I clever?

NaNoWriMo starts Thursday! I am daunted! I am whelmed! I'm going to do it! Since the number of votes and suggestions on my story ideas were underwhelming, I've just shunned everyone's opinion and am going with idea #1, the South America adventure story. It was tied for the most votes, too, with (drum roll)... 2! So there you have it. My first, frantic, awful novel is in the pot simmering. There probably won't be many posts here during November, other than novel posts. I have no shame, so I'll probably share what I've written on here every week or so. You can follow along the horrendousness that will be my novel.