The Inferno

This eBook contains "Inferno: an Eyewitness account of San Diego on Fire" and other stories. In 2007, a number of natural wildfires broke out in San Diego. The Witch Creek fire was the first and the largest of a series of wildfires that spread across Southern California - including areas in the Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties - and Northern Mexico. The author and his family had just moved to San Diego a few months before the wild fire burned down 198,000 acres (800 square km) in his neighborhood and adjacent towns. Wildfires are a relatively common natural occurrence in Southern California and occur naturally expected between June and October in the arid Southern California region, when the combination of the arid climate with less than 10% humidity and the fierce Santa Ana winds (also known as the Devil Winds) combine to ignite the dry forest timber and spread the resulting flames. As human habitation has spread across the arid areas covered highly flammable "brush-lands", the potential for catastrophe has simply becomes greater. In 2007, when the author was forced to witness this right after moving to the area, these fires were so fierce that flames and smoke could be seen from outer space. In fact, NASA satellites were able to take some pictures that would be considered awesome, if only they weren't depicting something so terrible. These giant flame required the evacuation of more than a million people - the largest evacuation ever staged in the history of California. In San Diego alone, 900,000 had to leave their homes. By the time the fires were finally brought under control on October 26, at least 12 people were dead and 2,000 homes and other structures had been burned down. San Diego County was, of course, the worst hit. In that area alone, losses amounted to around a billion dollars. the other stories include "Feminization of Las Vegas", "Inside the Giant Machine" and "Into the Heart of the Mind".
About the Author: Kalpanik S. is an immigrant technologist. He came to the USA on a fellowship from the University of California in late eighties to study and do research in Computer Science. After completing his Graduate studies, Kalpanik worked at both large technology companies and small start-ups in West Coast's High Tech corridor - Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Southern California. He had been writing a journal about his "journey'" through the US pretty much from the time he landed at the San Francisco Airport more than twenty years ago, and he finally decided to get it published. Kalpanik (pronounced as Kaalp-Nik) means "imaginary" in Hindi. Author decided to use a pen name to allow him to separate his literary identity from his professional identity.