Is L.A. burning?

The recent fires in the Hollywood Hills reminded me of a sight I saw one night when I was living high up on Lookout Mountain Avenue in Laurel Canyon.

I had not watched the news or left the house that day, so I hadn't heard about or seen the fires. When I went outside for something (to do the laundry, I think) and looked to the east, I was surprised to see several fires burning on one of the other hills. The fires were miles away and there were lots of roads and canyons and other obstacles between me and them, so I wasn't afraid of them spreading to where I was. But, it was still an eerie thing to see. The fires must have been pretty big to have been so visible from far away, but I couldn't really judge their size any more precisely than that. It was already dark out. Even in daylight it would have been hard to establish a frame of reference for estimating the size of the fires since the area that was burning was mostly trees and bushes of various sizes. From a distance, the fires were just orange shapes growing and moving around an otherwise dark section of the hills. I was much too far away to hear any of the sounds that the fires and firefighters must have been making. It was very quiet where I was, as Laurel Canyon usually is.