So you’ve got a record-breaking heat wave back in Britain right now? The weather sites tell me that this weekend, temperatures will reach 111˚F (that’s about 44˚C in old money) in dusty old Davis. In that sort of heat, people won’t need their barbecues, they’ll be able to cook their steak and their corn-on-the-cobs off the pavement (subject to stringent health and safety laws, of course). Down in San Francisco, however, it is forecast to be about 77˚F (22˚C), which is actually fairly warm for the Bay Area. That’s a difference of almost forty degrees, in a little over an hour and a half’s drive. I know where I’m going this weekend.

It’s high summer in California; hot, dry, relentless. Air-conditioners are pumping, while electricity suppliers are urging consumers not to be too wasteful (presumably because they won’t know what to spend the extra massive profits on). In various parts of the state wildfires are burning, causing huge plumes of smoke to drift across the Sierras into Nevada like distress calls. The smoke cloud from this week’s Canyon fire in Stanislaus County was so vast it was visible from space. Firefighters are working overtime to control the blazes, but they know it’ll be a long hot summer. It’s thought that because we had an unusually wet winter, the brush has grown longer and thicker than normal this year. Now that it has been dried golden in the Sun, the thick brush has turned California into a giant tinder-box.

Wildfires have always been a problem for California, as elsewhere. I remember watching the news in Britain over the years, when they would show news of one wildfire or another attacking the hills around Los Angeles (such as the Cedar Fire of ‘03), images of wealthy movie executives watching helplessly as the flames reduced their secluded mansions to ash and insurance cash. One of the worst fires of recent years was the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm in the East Bay, which killed 25 people and caused $1.5 billion damage. Some of these fires are started by lightning strikes, others by small grass fires that are not contained, and others (as was the Cedar Fire) are started by human beings, be it carelessly or deliberately. Some of them destroy homes and businesses; others destroy some of the oldest and largest trees on the planet.

As if it wasn’t hot enough! I currently have three fans pointed in my direction (that’s already more than Cristiano Ronaldo has), and have had several trips to the fridge to get Sobes, sodas, cold water, Sudwerk beer. I may move on to artificially flavoured popsicles soon, or maybe go for a late evening swim. On the CD player is The Style Council, ‘Long Hot Summer’ (no, really). Clothes indoors are not an option. While my brain thinks only of ways to cool down my body, I keep running into one thought that brings me no end of cheer: at least I’m not on the Tube.