In what seemed like the blink of an eye, wildfires ignited in the paper-dry, drought-stricken vegetation of Southern California over the weekend of October 20, 2007, and exploded into massive infernos that forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their communities...

Driven by Santa Ana winds, fires grew thousands of acres in just one to two days. It sped down from the mountains into the outskirts of coastal cities, including San Diego. Dozens of homes have burned to the ground, and at least one person has died, according to local news reports. Several of the fires were burning completely out of control as of October 22.

This image of the fires in California was captured at 1:55 p.m. U.S. Pacific Daylight Time on October 22, 2007.  Actively burning fires are outlined in red.  You can see thick streamers of smoke unfurl over the Pacific Ocean and brownish plumes of dust from the Santa Ana winds.

All files and images from the Earth Observatory of NASA. Google Earth is, of course, from Google.

Click here for a Google Map of the California Fires (You Need Google Earth to View this file)