Sharing photos, videos, vintage images I've discovered, and -- occasionally -- commentary and thoughts from retired life and travels.

wild fires

Thank goodness for air conditioning!

July 17, 2011

image

I guess we’re getting the flip side of our colder than normal winter.  It certainly gives one an appreciation for air conditioned living and working spaces.

While this is a hotter than normal summer, it is not without precedent.  The summer that we moved here, 1980, was much worse.  Many of the rural volunteer fire departments in the area were created as a result of the widespread wild fires that year.  The hot dry conditions lasted from June into early October, from what I remember.

imageWe did have a break last week.  On Tuesday, we got about 3 inches of rain in downpour that lasted an hour.  Then, during the night, we had another inch and a quarter for a total of about 4.25 inches (10.8 cm).  Then the temperature stayed under a hundred through yesterday.

I guess I can’t complain too much.  When I was a teen, I lived in southeast Texas the summer of 1965 and from June 1967 to December 1971.  That was 6 summers in a hot and humid part of the U.S. – and we did not have air conditioning.

These days, though, we’re not acclimatized to the heat and tend to hide from it – as much as we can.

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Setting

May 25, 2010

Canton Lake, Oklahoma, August 29, 2009

Gallery: Canton Lake – Oklahoma, August 29, 2009

(click on image for larger version)

The sun was setting in a sky laden with smoke particles from fire in the Los Angeles area.  Canton Lake was the first stop on our 2nd trip of 2009.

The Station Fire (August 26 – October 16, 160,577 acres (251 sq mi; 64,983 ha), 209 structures destroyed, including 89 homes) started in the Angeles National Forest near the U.S. Forest Service ranger station on the Angeles Crest Highway (State Highway 2). Two firefighters were killed on August 30 while attempting to escape the flames when their fire truck plunged off a cliff. The blaze threatened 12,000 structures in the National Forest and the nearby communities of La Cañada Flintridge, Glendale, Acton, La Crescenta, Littlerock and Altadena, as well as the Sunland and Tujunga neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles. Many of these areas faced mandatory evacuations as the flames drew near, but as of September 6, all evacuation orders were lifted. The Station Fire burned on the slopes of Mount Wilson, threatening numerous television, radio and cellular telephone antennas on the summit, as well as the Mount Wilson Observatory, which includes several historically significant telescopes and multi-million-dollar astronomical facilities operated by UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley and Georgia State University. A 40-mile (64-kilometer) stretch of the Angeles Crest Highway was closed indefinitely due to guardrail and sign damage, although the pavement remained largely intact.

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Moraine Park Twilight

February 18, 2010

Moraine Meadows, smoke from California fires, 9-1-2009

The smoke, which enhanced the twilight in this photo of the mountains above Moraine Park and the people viewing elk, is actually from fires that were burning in California.

September 1, 2009

Rocky Mountain National Park

Gallery: Eastern slopes – September 1, 2009

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Mesa Top

December 18, 2009

September 15, 2009 – Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

On our last full day in Colorado, we toured the six-mile Mesa Top Loop Drive, visiting most of the archeological exhibits and overlooks.

square_tower_house

Square Tower House cliff dwelling is named for the four-story-high structure standing against the curved back wall of the alcove.  About 60 of the original 80 rooms of Square Tower House remain.

square_tower_house-2

All of the cliff dwellings, including Square Tower House, were part of the final Mesa Verde building phase.  People lived here between AD 1200 and 1300.

lizard_on_the_ruins

Small lizard on a ruin wall

horses

After spending the morning among the ruins, we took a drive in the afternoon.  At one point, we found ourselves on open range, with the road blocked by a herd of horses.  As I very slowly eased the car forward, the horses parted and let us through.

Commentary and images from the road

image and information from September 15, 2009

This post is being simultaneously published on Exit78 and Haw Creek Out ‘n About

Pithouse – For thousands of years, native peoples were living in the surrounding areas before coming to Mesa Verde.  As with people all over the Southwest, Ancestral Puebloans lived in modest dwellings  — shallow pits dug into the ground, covered with pole and mud roofs and walls, with entrances through the roofs.

pithouse

In this excavation (above), what appears to be one pithouse is actually two.  The larger one, built first, around AD 700, was destroyed by fire. The smaller one, which looks like an antechamber to a larger room, is actually a second pithouse built soon after the first one burned.  It contains a new feature, a verticle ventilator shaft in one side, which appears in pithouses from then on — innovation!

cermonial_chamber

Above is an Ancestral Puebloan kiva – an undeground religious room.  The small circular hole in the floor is a sipapu, a symbolic entrance into the underworld – the Pueblo place of origin.  This early kiva design was continued in the Mesa Verde villages and cliff dwellings.

fire_signs_at_mesa_verde

Many fires have swept across Mesa Verde over time.  Recent fires have exposed previously undiscovered Puebloan sites.

our_campsite

At our campsite on our final afternoon in
Colorado, 2009.

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More Smoky Days — Why?

September 3, 2007

When we drove from Billings to Great Falls, Montana on Friday, the entire drive was very smoky. Visibility was significantly reduced. We probably missed some interesting scenery.

We’re hitting the road again today and it looks like it is going to be another smoky day.

So what is the cause of all these fires out here in the west?

2007-09-03a.jpgI suspect that most people believe that they are caused by the carelessness of humans. However, according to the National Forest Service online active fire maps, most are caused by lightning.

In planning where we are going to go next, the Forest Service’s Remote Sensing Applications Center web site has been very useful, though, of course, it is intended primarily for official fire management use.

When you click on the location of each fire, it gives the name, size, status, and other information for the fire, including cause, where known.

Regional fire maps are also available. Using one of them we were able to determine that the closest fires to us are about 80 miles away.

2007-09-03b.jpg

The winds today are such that we’re probably going to be in smoke all day.

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Smoky Skies

August 31, 2007

Today we drove from Billings to Great Falls.

The sky was nasty all day. In some places, we could even smell the smoke. I thought a couple of times that I could see ash falling.

The fires are to the west of us a ways. The closest is in the mountains about 80 miles away. However if it were a clear day, we might be able to see the smoke in the distance.

Copy of 2007-08-20-088ed

We had another day early last week in the Black Hills where the smoke was just about as bad. I’m using one of my photos from that day as this week’s Photo Hunters entry.

There is supposed to be a chance of rain in some areas in the next day or so. It would be great if all of that rain went where it is needed the most to douse those fires — so long as it isn’t accompanied by too much lightning, one of the major causes of the wild fires out here.

A lost Exit78 post, recovered from Internet Archive WayBackMachine; March 2011

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