Just letting you know that the fire -- which as of late this afternoon has consumed thousands of acres since it started at around 5:30 a.m. this morning -- is "completely out of control" as of 4:30 p.m. San Francisco firefighters have been deployed to the scene. What with the serious winds blowing in the area, no one knows just when the fire will start to die down. Wineries have been lost, homes and......

For those of you with large animals (i.e., horses, emus, et al.) or even not so large animals (i.e., Sprinkles, et al.), a Capitola reader just informed us that you can take your beloved pets to the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds....

Huge plumes of smoke can be seen mushrooming over the Santa Cruz Mountains just above Ben Lomand due to a rapidly growing wildfire. It's gone from 100 acres to well over 1,000 in just a couple of hours. The fire allegedly sparked at the intersection of Summit and Loma Prieta roads. No lives, as of now, have been lost. Hundreds of homes, a few compounds, and several schools (C.T. English Middle School, Loma Prieta......