Around sunset as I was planning to go biking, the neighbors started shouting for me from the street. "CHRIS!! COME QUICK! BRING YOUR CAMERA! WE'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS!!"

So I ran outside and shot this with the Nikon and 70-200 lens, over the tops of the neighborhood trees.

As I was biking, I got alerts with an evacuation order, so I turned back to home. And then the smoke descended and the ash started falling. Turns out they got my location a little bit wrong, so it was a false alert. But our friends in the hills got the order and came to our house. So much for social distancing.

It seems like we just finished our fire season, and California is still on fire, then I remember our fires started in the first week of September last year!

Shit, we are only 3-4 weeks away from that time again😨

The planet has gone crazy.

I hope California gets these fires under control soon, Chris I hope you and your family stay safe and out of the smoke.

Amazing picture. Stay safe.

Looks like it's mainly us. Those damned Canadians are up there basking in clear air.

1 home destroyed, hundreds evacuated, thousands on notice as wildfire flares in southern B.C. | CBC NewsHundreds of residents in British Columbia's southern Okanagan region are out of their homes, and thousands more must be ready to leave on short notice as a nearby wildfire grows in size.www.google.ca

We’ve been getting unseasonably warm weather this summer and it’s starting to hit us. Not as much as the last few years though. Nothing like down south though.

We had to close our windows due to the smoke. Amazing shot, though!!

Nah - other end.

Good and bad in whatever cycle occurs.

Well it's gotten really serious. We have evacuees at our home but our friends in the hills surrounding us in Los Altos are getting evacuation notices and we've been placed on alert. I can't imagine a fire could get to our suburban area, but apparently Cal Fire thinks it's a possibility and they should know.

California fires torch more land than 5 New York Cities. Now bad weather could ignite more blazesFirefighters working 24-hour shifts will get no reprieve from California's wildfires as lightning could spark new infernos. Across the West, more than 10 million people are under red-flag warnings Monday.www.cnn.com

Kevin took an extraordinary photo of one of our most beloved state parks, Big Basin, burning to the ground, so hot there's questions about which redwoods could survive:

Fires are a natural part of forests but we’ve kept them fire free too long. Climate is warmer and that doesn’t help. Not enough natural fire breaks. California is very hilly and that makes it very tough and dangerous to fight fires. My friend in Santa Clarita (NE of LoS Angeles) has seen so many fires in the last fire years it’s crazy. So many areas and canyons in SoCal that I bike through have been burnt in the last few years.

So sorry to see how bad it is, please stay safe.

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Last week my dear friend Phil, who some of you may remember as the guy I went to the 75th anniversary of D-Day with, invited me to his home on Mt. Hamilton to show off some of the renovation he’s been doing for the past few years.

Beautiful home.

A few days later, yesterday:

That’s so devastating. I feel for him and the other people affected in such a horrible way.

That's Tragic.

I hope your mate and his family are all OK burns are a dreadful injury.

New South Wales will be sending 55 fire specialists to California before September 6, the team will consist of seasoned firefighting personnel, ready to fill management and aviation roles, as well as field positions.

The delay is due to the lack of flights because of COVID-19

I hope they don't arrive too late because we had great support out of the USA earlier this year.

That’s awesome! But I hope they do arrive too late. 😁

We are seeing a lot of news on TV about the California and Washington state fires.

Stay safe everyone it looks bad especially near SF.

It looks super apocalyptic outside. This orange haze. Weird times.

And Oregon. My daughter lives in Salem and here’s what the skies look like:

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This is what our car looks like as ash & soot falls from our darkened, orange skies.

This is what looking out our kitchen window is like at 1 pm. The foreground is light because we have the kitchen light on because it’s so dark.