The Day San Diego Faced a DEVASTATING Firestorm #onthisday

Before dawn on October 22, 2007, the danger near San Diego was moving faster than the visible wall of flames. This episode of This Day in History follows the Santa Ana winds, the Witch Creek and Guejito fires, and the people working to protect communities in their path. Through authentic archival images, original weather animations and the findings of a later NIST investigation, discover how descending air, falling humidity and windborne embers shaped the disaster. The story reaches from inland hills to evacuation shelters, then follows the evidence left behind. What surprised you most about the way wind changed this event? #OnThisDayInHistory #SantaAnaWinds #SanDiegoFirestorm CHAPTERS 00:00 Before the flames 00:30 A landscape waiting for wind 02:10 The wind comes downhill 04:10 Sunday changes everything 05:40 A second fire in the darkness 07:40 The danger ahead of the front 09:40 Working inside the emergency 11:10 A city makes room 12:40 The view from space 14:30 Reading the ruins 16:10 The fire ends the work continues 17:20 On this day VISUAL CREDITS NASA Earth Observatory / NASA Earth Science: Jesse Allen; MODIS data courtesy University of Wisconsin SSEC; Lawrence Ong; NASA MODIS Rapid Response Team / Goddard Space Flight Center; NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory. MODIS, QuikSCAT and EO-1 imagery used under NASA's published reuse policy: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/faq/ FEMA photographs: Michael Raphael and Andrea Booher. NIST aftermath photograph: Maranghides/NIST. “Red Sky at Morning San Diego 22 Oct 2007 v1” — slworking2, CC BY 2.0. Orientation corrected and cropped for the opening. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... “TentCityQualcomm” — Nehrams2020, CC BY-SA 3.0. Scaled and framed; any adapted image presentation is offered under this same license. The source image retains its license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... U.S. Navy / DVIDS, video 30445, October 23, 2007: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/30445/... The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Map base: Natural Earth, public domain. https://www.naturalearthdata.com/abou... Original explanatory animations created for WeatherWackoo. MUSIC “Dark Fog” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://incompetech.com/music/royalty... Edited and excerpted for this video. “Cylinder Seven” and “Cylinder Five” by Chris Zabriskie, from Cylinders Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://chriszabriskie.com/cylinders/ https://chriszabriskie.com/ Edited and excerpted for this video. “The Closing Of Summer” by Asher Fulero YouTube Audio Library recording. Edited and excerpted for this video.    • Asher Fulero - The Closing Of Summer - OFF...   SOUND DESIGN Original wind, ember, transition, clock and tonal effects created for this production. Designed illustrative audio; not archival recordings of the 2007 fire. PRIMARY SOURCES NIST case study: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Leg... San Diego after-action report: https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/defaul... National Weather Service: https://www.weather.gov/media/wrh/onl... CAL FIRE incident record: https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/200...