The gubmint doesn't just use those satellites for military purposes -- some of them are used by the US Department of Agriculture in collaboration with NASA to watch the fires and you can get maps that are refreshed every 4 hours right here. There are also maps taken with time-averaged data compiled at 3:00am and 3:00pm at this location. Both of those were courtesy of some NASA satellites.

If you've been wondering about what the official word is on the fires and just been frustrated by the uninformative Los Angeles Fire Department, or infuriated by the laughable City of Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Department , then wonder no more and use the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's great page which includes hotline numbers for people in emergency areas.

Air Quality is on many of us cyclists minds and the official word can be found at the Air Quality Management District pages. As a cyclist I do wonder about what this is doing to my lungs -- I couldn't even see Griffith Park clearly from Silverlake, let alone the San Gabriels but this data seems to claim that it's all OK. I wonder. That's what the EPA said about air quality after the Twin Towers were attacked and it turned out to be untrue.