Overcast seemingly lisping away to ‘partly sunny’ near-noon this Wednesday on California’s north coast — already some direct sunlight, so the weird-ass skies the last few days might be drawing to an end.
Yet not — the forest fires burning just to the east and south of us continues nearly unchecked, especially the Mad River Complex around Ruth Lake (this morning at Lost Coast Outpost): ‘The prognosis for today is not great. “The warmer and drier conditions will increase the potential for rapid fire spread,” incident commanders write. “The high pressure will also trap and hold the smoke in the canyons.”‘
And apparently away from us near the shoreline.

(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Horse Head.’ Sketch for “Guernica,”‘ found here).

There’s seven different fires burning in that area, making up the complex, with nearly 14,000 total-acres already scorched in six days, though, only two percent contained. Altogether up in our zone, there’s seven huge ‘complex’ fires still raging away, none fully contained.

Dinky blazes next to Lake County’s Rocky Fire that’s clipping along now at 67,000 acres — and as of this morning, firefighters have contained just 20 percent of it.
Now a week old, the monster blaze has created a world/environment all its own.
From SFGate:

The ravenous blaze racing through this area may not be a living organism, but fire behavior specialists say the vast oval of flame has been acting like a demon, bolting in all directions, shooting out superheated tentacles and even creating its own weather.
…
The blaze on Monday jumped containment lines on Highway 20, north of the city of Clearlake, and by Tuesday evening it had eaten up an additional 7,000 acres, bolstering its status as the biggest and most dangerous of about two dozen major wildfires in the state.
According to the White House, President Obama was keeping an eye on it.
“It has gone in every direction with intensity,” including downhill, said Scott Upton, a unit chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and an expert on fire behavior.
“It’s like an amoeba.”
The fire, which was just 20 percent contained as of Tuesday evening, was baffling officials by spreading on its own, without the help of strong winds that would normally be needed.
“This is insane, insane fire behavior,” Upton said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
…
Part of the problem, Upton said, is that the fire is hungrily devouring grasslands, bushes and trees — “we call it standing gasoline” — that are critically dry after four years of drought.
The winds in the area have picked up in the afternoons, but not enough to account for what everyone agrees is erratic fire behavior.
“This one has not had a lot of wind associated with it other than the wind it is creating itself,” Upton said.
…
“It’s a fuel-driven fire, but it is also creating its own weather,” Upton said.
“It’s almost like it’s eating, which is how some of our guys are describing it.”

Unfortunately, forest fires are a nationwide problem, shredding fire-fighting budgets.
Via USAToday:

For the first time in its 110-year history, the U.S. Forest Service says it spends more than 50 percent of its annual budget on firefighting at the expense of other programs to prevent the infernos.
Just 20 years ago, firefighting made up 16 percent of the annual budget for the Forest Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“This is a five-alarm fire,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
“You’re no longer the forest service, you’re a fire department.”
…
“The agency is at a tipping point,” the Forest Service said in the report, adding its annual budget today is nearly half a billion dollars less than in 1995 when adjusted for inflation.
“To solve this problem, we must change the way we pay for wildfire,” the Forest Service said.
“Instead of treating catastrophic wildfires as a normal agency expense, we must treat them more like other natural disasters, such as tornadoes or hurricanes.”
The report’s release comes as the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act makes it way through Congress and is mirrored by a similar proposal in President Obama’s 2016 Budget, the Forest Service said.

And idiot Republicans with ‘insane…insane…behavior…’