fire it up

Well, it's day four since the Gap Fire started and it shows no signs of letting up. The Santa Barbara Independent reported earlier this evening that the fire has spread to almost 6,000 acres, and orders for mandatory evacuation has expanded to include 1,700 homes. We live across the street from a high school that's serving as an evacuation center, and the parking lot definitely looks more full than it did a couple nights ago.

Besides the power outages we've had every night since then, we've been doing okay. It was pretty scary driving up the 101 on Wednesday night and seeing an amazingly huge stretch of mountains ablaze...and I got kind of worried on Thursday night that our house was going to go up in smoke (probably didn't help that our neighbor was being slightly hysterical and packing up her stuff to leave because she heard this and that, and the power was out so I couldn't connect to any source of real information). The worst thing is the air quality, though...I looked outside last night and the blanket of ash on the rooftops made it look like it had snowed here. We've also had to leave the windows shut to keep the smell of smoke out, so it's been extra warm and stuffy inside our apartment lately. I guess it's good that that's the worst thing we've had to deal with so far, though.

And just like every other notable holiday and/or special event in our lives, we made a mix dedicated to the Gap Fire of 2008:

1. "We Didn't Start the Fire" - Billy Joel
2. "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" - The Arcade Fire
3. "Volcanoes" - Islands
4. "Trimmed and Burning" - Built to Spill
5. "El Scorcho" - Weezer
6. "Keep on Breathing" - Delgados
7. "Strawberryfire" - The Apples in Stereo
8. "Fiery Affair" - Figurines
9. "Cinder and Smoke" - Iron and Wine
10. "Natural Disaster" - Headphones
11. "This Heart's on Fire" - Wolf Parade
12. "Streets of Fire" - The New Pornographers
13. "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes" - Modest Mouse
14. "Smoke" - Ben Folds Five
15. "Promise" - Pedro the Lion
16. "Ashes of American Flags" - Wilco
17. "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" - R.E.M.
18. "Freakin' Out" - Graham Coxon
19. "Waitin' For a Superman" - The Flaming Lips

Let us know if we can burn (heh) you a copy.