Fire
The weather has been very strange around these parts: more like late summer/fall than early summer/spring. Right now we have an offshore air flow with 40 mph winds, and that brings on fire season. Early this morning the smoke detectors came on and then went off again, and the toymaker and I did a reconnoiter to make sure that nothing was amiss. On opening the office window (the AC had been on) we realized what had happened. A local brush fire had set everything off, even with all the windows closed. We closed the window. It was already 78 F at 5:00 am. We went back to sleep until another round of smoke detectors went.
And then this morning, we went down a couple of blocks to watch the fire. It was, luckily, fairly small.
As we watched, though, it grew.
And then the tanker planes came into view. They must have been flying it for hours. I caught these pictures of our local heroes dropping fire retardant.
The next tanker plane flew straight into the center, and is obscured by the smoke, but you can see the retardant.
And then the tanker flew out of the smoke (the retardant is also circled to the right),
leaving a haze of retardant behind to blow over the fire.
Wow.
Thank you seems such an insignificant thing to say to someone who protects us all by risking his/her own life, doesn't it? Nonetheless, I don't know what else to say! So a giant thank you to all of you firefighters, paid and volunteer (like my town) alike that stop fires like this from spreading any further than they do! I am in awe.
And then this morning, we went down a couple of blocks to watch the fire. It was, luckily, fairly small.
As we watched, though, it grew.
And then the tanker planes came into view. They must have been flying it for hours. I caught these pictures of our local heroes dropping fire retardant.
The next tanker plane flew straight into the center, and is obscured by the smoke, but you can see the retardant.
And then the tanker flew out of the smoke (the retardant is also circled to the right),
leaving a haze of retardant behind to blow over the fire.
Wow.
Thank you seems such an insignificant thing to say to someone who protects us all by risking his/her own life, doesn't it? Nonetheless, I don't know what else to say! So a giant thank you to all of you firefighters, paid and volunteer (like my town) alike that stop fires like this from spreading any further than they do! I am in awe.
Labels: general
posted by Romi at 1:40 PM
7 Comments:
Wow!
Romi, it's going to be a long nasty summer for us in NorCal. We've had some brush fires, too, and it's way too early in the season.
Odd weather is everywhere. Here in Western New York we had no burn warnings already in the month of April, which is usually one of our wettest months. There have been a few small brush fires which our volunteers put out quickly. Then there was a barn fire caused by the heat building so quickly in the hay loft. Things like this are usually summer occurances NOT early spring.
My best friend is a firefighter and paramedic and I have lived in awe of her daily heroism for years. She's a tiny woman, but thinks nothing of dragging huge men out the windows of their crushed cars or rappelling off a cliff to get to an accident victim or climbing up mountainsides for days on end fighting wildfires. She lives in a rural area, so most of the time, she works almost alone. A few years ago during an awful fire season, she and her crew of six all lost their own homes in a massive fire while fighting to save their neighbors' homes, and then were nearly killed when the fire blew over the station where they had taken cover. Heroes come in all sizes, I guess.
Oh, Sweetheart, we were just watching the news and saw footage of the fire in Gville. I ran in here to check your blog...happy to see you are okay. Field trip tomorrow!
I just can't believe that it is hotter there than here!
Scary! Very scary to see that kind of thing so close to your own home. And to think that it set off your own smoke detectors!...
I cannot believe how all the grass on the hills is already so scorched! I hope you will have a safe summer.
Post a Comment
<< Home