Catalina Island is on fire. I'm listening to the live reports on the radio behind me and they're evacuating the island. A woman on her cell phone just called in and said that she and her husband are on a 50ft yacht anchored in the water about 300ft from the casino. They brought in fire trucks from the mainland earlier today and now they've brought in another ferry to get people off the island. This is for real. The hotels are being emptied out and everyone has been ordered off the island... LAPD, FEMA, Red Cross, Long Beach FD and many others are out there trying to help. For those who don't know, Catalina Island is 26 miles across the channel from the mainland and you can see the island from Newport Beach on a clear day. For many years it was owned by Phillip K. Wrigley and contains many kinds of exotic wildlife, including its own herd of buffalo...
http://www.catalina.com/main.html http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-catalina11may11,0,964662.story?
It looks like the fire fighters did a good job and there was some good luck too. The wind blew away from the city of Avalon, so the town was OK. More good news was that a nest with the first wild hatchlings of bald eagles in over 60 years escaped the flames and the birds are OK as well...