Los Angeles County Sand Fire Casts Ominous Pall Over Region (VIDEO)

There's been so much other news I've neglected to post on the Santa Clarita "Sand Fire."

Dave Swindle and Roger Simon tweeted photos. A charred sky is never very welcoming.

More, at LAT, "'The most frightening thing': 10,000 homes evacuated as Sand fire rages in Santa Clarita Valley":

There hung the sun, brazenly aglow in red. The sky around it, tinted a dusty rose. In the stifling air, ashes fluttered like snowflakes.

The effects of the Sand fire over the last few days have cast an ominous yet picturesque pall across the Los Angeles Basin, the sun and the moon eliciting comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Eye of Sauron” and apocalyptic films.

But up in the Santa Clarita Valley, the largest blaze in Los Angeles County this year was no photo op. Raging in the steep, rugged mountains and charring more than 35,000 acres, the Sand fire plowed through homes and sent thousands fleeing as it swept through a landscape of desiccated fuel. Explosive and swift, it melted cars, downed power lines and left the air thick with smoke.

“This is a big animal,” said Mike Wakoski, a spokesman for the multi-agency wildfire effort made up of nearly 3,000 firefighters. Wakoski warned that the fire was scorching an average of 10,000 football fields a day and that containment would be slow...

More.