fiyaaa!

If you have checked the news in the past week or so you probably know that a large portion of Los Angeles County is on fire.

The fires are about 20 miles away from where I live, and, as far as I know, not expected to threaten urban Los Angeles. But they did produce this weird cloud with a pure-white broccoli top directly over downtown Los Angeles this afternoon, which I have learned is called a pyrocumulus cloud. Wikipedia tells me that it is produced by the same atmospheric mechanism as a mushroom cloud. Disasters are so fascinating from a safe distance!

On Vimeo, a filmmaker named Eric Spiegelman has created two time-lapse videos of the fires. They are kind of weirdly beautiful if you forget, you know, that that shit can kill you and destroy everything you own and such.

Yet another reason I'm never living in the Los Angeles County exurbs!

Time Lapse Test: The Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Time Lapse Test: Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.