The Blood-Red Sun of the Firestorms... (photo-essay from Northern California)

For days, the smoke has been hanging thick here in Sonoma County... Most of it from the Napa-Solano Fire but there are, according to the State of California, 800 fires burning right now in Napa, Mendocino and Lake Counties... These 3 counties form the northern, northeastern and southeastern borders of Sonoma County.

According to The Press Democrat (our largest local daily newspaper) these are the major fires that burning right now:

In Napa County: Wild Fire, northeast Napa and northwest of Fairfield, 3,750 acres, 40 percent contained, started at 4 p.m. Saturday, being fought by 438 firefighters with 41 engines. Several residential areas under mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders.

In Lake County: Walker Fire, near Indian Valley Reservoir, 2,000 acres, not contained, being fought by 54 firefighters with 12 engines, voluntary evacuations at Double Eagle Ranch and Bear Valley Ranchland.

In Mendocino County: Ninety fires were burning 7,625 acres. The largest are the Orr Fire at Orr Springs Resort, 200 acres, no containment; Navarro Fire, 1,400 acres, 5 percent contained; Cherry fire, 50 acres, 50 percent contained; Foster Fire, 50 acres, 50 percent contained; Table Mountain Fire, 1,000 acres, 5 percent contained; Mallo Pass Fire, 800 acres; and Juan Creek fires, 100 acres.

We here in Cloverdale are sitting within just a few miles of major fires on two sides: Northwest of us (the Orr and Navarro Fires) and east of us (the Walker and Napa-Solano Fire).

Here are some photos I took today as the sun went down that show a bit of how it looks around here.

Here's the sun earlier in the evening setting over a large pond just north of Healdsburg in northern Sonoma County:

Here's a shot of the setting sun behind the redwoods:

In this next shot, you can see how the hills in the background are obscured by the smoke:

These next two shots I took just before the sun disappeared down behind the hills to the east of Cloverdale:

As many as 800 fires have been reported in Mendocino County (just to the north of us). As with most of the fires around here right now (except for the Napa-Solano Fire which they think might have been intentionally set), they believe that all of them were ignited by "dry lightning" (lightning that forms in clouds high in the atmosphere where all of the precipitation evaporates before it hits the ground).