California Fires Flare In High Winds, But So Far No New Calamities, We Hope. Expected Rain Brings Joy And Worry

Smoke from a wildfire rises perilously close to some
apartment buildings Tuesday in San Diego. Firefighters
were able to put a stop to the fire. One of the apartment
buildings suffered minor damage. 

 It looks like Southern California got through the latest round of strong, dry winds that could have caused more calamitous wildfires not exactly unscathed, but better than it could have been.  

At least so far. The risk is far fro over as new fires broke out Wednesday amid continued gusty winds and arid conditions. 

The dry, strong winds have picked up again today and continue a threat of fast moving wildfires through Thursday morning. 

Numerous brush fires broke out amid the high winds Monday and Tuesday, but they were largely contained because additional firefighters had been staged in the region. 

Firefighters managed to get the upper hand on those fires before they could do much damage.

A worrisome exception might be a fire that broke out this morning in Rancho Bernardo, California, a little northeast of San Diego. At least one person has already been injured in the blaze and evacuations are underway. 

Video shows that fire was burning near a densely populated area. However, latest word as of 2 p.m. EST is that the fire showed signs of being brought under control. 

Another worrisome wildfire just broke out a couple hours before this writing in Castaic, California, near Santa Clarita. It, unfortunately was spreading rapidly amid strong winds and hasty evacuations were ongoing. 

At least two other wildfires broke out in the San Diego area on Tuesday, including one near a shopping mall and a dense collection of apartment buildings on steep hills. Looked dire, but firefighters appear to have defeated that fire, too, It looks like this blaze spread into and damaged one of the apartment buildings.  It appears firefighters saved most of that building, and the damage appeared to be rather minor. 

Near Los Angeles one fire popped up along the 405 in Granada Hills. Another spread through more than 40 acres in Riverside County. An arsonist set a fire in Griffith Park, but crews stopped it before it covered an acre and an arrest was made. 

Southern Californians are looking forward to finally seeing some rain that's in the forecast for the upcoming weekend.

The rain is obviously mostly great news, as it would at least temporarily tamp down the fire threat.  

Overall forecast rainfall amounts aren't expected to be excessively heavy, But a pool of cold air aloft could set off thunderstorms with locally heavy rain. If one of those downpours moves over any steep slopes where one of those massive fires raged this month, you're set up for some horrible debris flows. 

Especially since the fires just barely happened so everything is especially unstable.  The fires also cooked the surface of the soil, making it hard and impermeable to rain.  So the water runs off and as that water rushes downhill, it picks up debris. Whoever is then at the bottom of that hill is thus in real trouble.

Even then, the fire risk isn't over. It looks like southern California will turn rainless again after this weekend and that dry weather should last into February.