I got some incredible video footage Monday evening of the huge “Williams” wildfire about 30 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. From the top of any parking structure or other tall building on USC’s campus, you can see not only the smoke, but the actual flames. I’ll post my videos on this website ASAP. In the mean time, you can read about the fires here. As of Monday evening, the fire had burned 5,000 acres and was only 5 to 10 percent contained.

Meanwhile, back in my hometown of Newington, Connecticut, it seems there was a bit of wild weather recently…

A thunderstorm on Sept. 11 knocked a large branch off a tree in our back yard, blew it over the roof, and dumped it the front yard — in the process, partially blocking my bedroom window and the light-up American flag that my parents had turned on, at my request, in commemoration of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Above is a photo of the scene that my mom just sent me. Here’s another photo of the fallen branch in all its glory.

Finally, speaking of wild weather, Hurricane Isidore may have given the U.S. Gulf Coast a major break by unexpectedly spending the last 30 hours inland over the Yucatan Peninsula. The once-mighty storm, almost a Category 4 monster when it made landfall, is now barely a tropical storm, and may be downgraded to a tropical depression within a few hours. Forecasters say it will probably re-intensify once it re-emerges over the Gulf (although, I frankly, I wonder about that), but at any rate it seems unlikely to regain its former potency before making its second landfall (probably in Louisiana later this week).