The Santa Ana winds are dry, powerful winds that blow down the mountains toward the Southern California coast. I used to live in the Altadena area, and we would get days during Santa Ana wind events when the wind wasn’t present at all where we lived, but, a few blocks away, the wind was extremely strong. The firefighters in the area will tell you, if there’s a Santa Ana wind-driven fire, they will evacuate people ahead of the fire front and control the edges – but when the wind is blowing like this, there’s very little chance of stopping it until the wind subsides.