You think we have it bad?

On Monday, three fires began in southern California and have been raging ever since.

So far, reported Mashable , the Rye Fire in Santa Clarita has burned 1 000 acres, Santa Ana’s Creek Fire has destroyed 11 000 acres, and the Thomas Fire, which has been burning the longest, has torn through a massive 90 000 acres in Ventura County.

There’s also the 475-acre Skirball Fire near the Bel-Air area of Los Angeles.

The fires have produced such a massive amount of smoke that it’s visible from space:

And it’s all thanks to a Cali weather phenomenon known as the Santa Ana winds.

Comprising of extremely dry down-slope winds that originate inland (kind of like the Cape’s berg winds), the fires have spread quickly:

The east-to-west blowing winds come from the Pacific and tap into warm and dry conditions inland. The winds push against the air coming from the LA basin’s eastern mountains, which compresses the wind and heat between the ocean and the mountains, further drying out vegetation that has dried out over the summer.

December typically brings 10 Santa Ana days, which means by the end of the week the region will already have been hit by six of them, reports New York Times:

The fire danger is expected to be greatest on Thursday, when the online Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index forecasts an extreme fire threat all the way from Ventura County to the Mexican border. Not since October 2007 — when disastrous fires struck the region — has so much of the Southland faced extreme conditions.

Take a look at some of the devastation:

How’s this for a drive to work?

Not the typical morning commute… pic.twitter.com/kJIOQeqsIK

— A. Mutzabaugh CMT (@WLV_investor) December 6, 2017

Deep – you can see more photographs here.

[source:mashable&newyorktimes]