where wildly different is perfectly normal
Not aflame but still hot
Not aflame but still hot

Not aflame but still hot

So you may have heard that there’s a significant fire in foothills above Boulder.

I took this picture this evening, and it doesn’t do justice to the smoke. This photo is an improvement over this morning’s shot, which was just a wall of brown and gray smoke rushing towards us.

We’re far enough away to be safe, but we’ve gotten a good deal of side effects. Smoke, orange sky, ash on the patio. The winds today were terrible; 15-25 mph steady with gusts to 45 mph. As of 9:00pm MDT the fire is up to 3500 acres, with approximately 1000 homes evacuated. Thankfully the winds have died down, but many homes have been destroyed, including at least four that belonged to local firefighters. Thankfully there haven’t been any reports of injuries or deaths. And thankfully the temperatures are considerably lower than they were a few days ago.

As the sun went down tonight, we could better see the flames. I have no pictures, but we can definitely see orange and red flames from our back porch. Occasionally we see a large flare and we know something large has been consumed. The smoke smell has decreased here at home.

Wildfires are not uncommon here, but this one just exploded today. We had such a wet spring and early summer, followed by several weeks of dry weather. Plants grew lush with all the moisture, then dried out, tall and crispy. Tinder. (Tom just directed my attention out the window; a large smudge of red and orange is flaring in the black sky. Something big is going up.).

Tom and I have friends who live in this area, and we worry about them every time there is a blaze outside of Boulder. It’s the nature of things to burn and regrow, but it’s so painful to see happen in a populated area. We will know more in the morning; until then we can only hope and pray this is put out quickly.

2 Comments

  1. Karen

    We were up at Rocky Mountain National Park when we noticed the fire. It was incredible how fast it moved. I just hope that they are able to get it contained soon, but with this wind it doesn’t look good.

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