I posted a picture yesterday of my just-racked buttery chardonnay -- opened the window to get the light shining through it and when through saw this in the distance:
Yesterday, we had what's called a "red flag" warning -- high temps (96F), high winds(25-30mph -- note the trees in the foreground), and low humidity (around 18%). The smudge of smoke you see is in a popular recreation area at the edge of town -- this pic was taken about 5:30pm and the fire started about a half hour earlier -- it's probably 5 acres at this point. (We are about 4 miles away, as the raven flies.)
This is about 6pm and the fire has "spotted" up the hill on the right side of the draw. While there are no homes in the recreationarea (it is US Forest Service) there are many home in the flats below and in the smoke-filled valley on the right. At this point a helicopter with a bucket started putting water on the spot fires on the right hand slope and we saw a "lead plane" flying in the area (a twin-engined Beech Baron), so we knew retardent "bombers" would soon arrive.
This was taken about 7pm -- youcan see several spot fires on the hill to the right of the draw where the fire originated -- there were spot fires on the backside of this hill as well -- we watched two helicopters (sky-cranes) bringing water from the Clark Fork River (which runs left to right along the base of these hills) and "working" the spot fires on the right side of the gully (the left side of the hill in the middle of the picture). Soon, two "retardent bombers" -- a P-3 Orion and a P-2 Neptune -- arrived and began dropping their loads -- the airport is about 3 miles to the right of the picture, so there was a quick turn-around.
This is now 7:30pm, winds have started to die down and smoke is much diminished. The speck in the sky (on the left) below the bright spot is a P-3 Orion, a 4-engined ex-Navy sub-hunter converted to carry about 3000 gallons of retardent, actually a commercial fetilizer that is in a viscous state, similar to the last inch or so on the bottom of your carboy -- but it sticks to the vegetation and "retards" the fire from burningwhere the retardent has been dropped. The lead plane leads in the larger plane, showing the pilot where to dump the load. They were flying from right to left, often BEHIND that triangular-shaped hill to get to the spots on the backside. Needless to say, but -- these folks have the "right stuff."
It's now about 8pm, the retardent ships and helicopters have stopped and we know that there are likely hand crews up there hitting the fire hard -- we can tell that because of the reduced amount of smoke the fire is putting up. We sipped our cabernet and toasted those folks out there -- and after dark we could see flames in several spots that we knew were still burning. This morning...
...NO SMOKE! We learned that they had worked through the night and were able to get it out due to quick action and the help of the aerial folks!
I know this doesn't have much to do with wine, except for my goofy references above, but while we may not have the high humidityand damp basements like some of our friends, this is what our weather DOES give us!
So, a toast
and "THANKS" to firefighters everywhere, who, like all emergency services people do their jobs so we can sit on the deck with a glass of wine and watch the sun set!
Dave
Yesterday, we had what's called a "red flag" warning -- high temps (96F), high winds(25-30mph -- note the trees in the foreground), and low humidity (around 18%). The smudge of smoke you see is in a popular recreation area at the edge of town -- this pic was taken about 5:30pm and the fire started about a half hour earlier -- it's probably 5 acres at this point. (We are about 4 miles away, as the raven flies.)
This is about 6pm and the fire has "spotted" up the hill on the right side of the draw. While there are no homes in the recreationarea (it is US Forest Service) there are many home in the flats below and in the smoke-filled valley on the right. At this point a helicopter with a bucket started putting water on the spot fires on the right hand slope and we saw a "lead plane" flying in the area (a twin-engined Beech Baron), so we knew retardent "bombers" would soon arrive.
This was taken about 7pm -- youcan see several spot fires on the hill to the right of the draw where the fire originated -- there were spot fires on the backside of this hill as well -- we watched two helicopters (sky-cranes) bringing water from the Clark Fork River (which runs left to right along the base of these hills) and "working" the spot fires on the right side of the gully (the left side of the hill in the middle of the picture). Soon, two "retardent bombers" -- a P-3 Orion and a P-2 Neptune -- arrived and began dropping their loads -- the airport is about 3 miles to the right of the picture, so there was a quick turn-around.
This is now 7:30pm, winds have started to die down and smoke is much diminished. The speck in the sky (on the left) below the bright spot is a P-3 Orion, a 4-engined ex-Navy sub-hunter converted to carry about 3000 gallons of retardent, actually a commercial fetilizer that is in a viscous state, similar to the last inch or so on the bottom of your carboy -- but it sticks to the vegetation and "retards" the fire from burningwhere the retardent has been dropped. The lead plane leads in the larger plane, showing the pilot where to dump the load. They were flying from right to left, often BEHIND that triangular-shaped hill to get to the spots on the backside. Needless to say, but -- these folks have the "right stuff."
It's now about 8pm, the retardent ships and helicopters have stopped and we know that there are likely hand crews up there hitting the fire hard -- we can tell that because of the reduced amount of smoke the fire is putting up. We sipped our cabernet and toasted those folks out there -- and after dark we could see flames in several spots that we knew were still burning. This morning...
...NO SMOKE! We learned that they had worked through the night and were able to get it out due to quick action and the help of the aerial folks!
I know this doesn't have much to do with wine, except for my goofy references above, but while we may not have the high humidityand damp basements like some of our friends, this is what our weather DOES give us!
So, a toast
Dave
