We are back at home for the time being. We spent the afternoon in Carlsbad, then headed over to the local shopping mall where they set-up an emergency response center. We stayed there until 8:30PM or so. Michael came back to the house to pick up a couple of things and noticed that the smoke wasn't as bad as before.

Right now the fires are west and south of us. There is a vantage point near our house where you can see a line of fire. It's probably 5-6 miles away. We met an ecologist when we were out there, and he described the vegetation and terrain between us and the fire. He reassured us that staying home for now is a reasonable option and since we aren't under mandatory evacuations (just voluntary) we will.

Coming home we "joked" that it was a good thing that we were able to practice an evacuation drill before we have two children.

Thanks for your well wishes and kind emails.