Friday, July 20, 2007
More fires... ranting about the lack of concern!
I know, it's been two days since I updated this blog. We've been a little busy here...
About 4 hours after I posted the previous pictures... I was once again out watering the sheep. I've got lots of time to look around while I'm filling a 50-gal trough.
This is just 25 miles or so west of us (thought it was more like 50... but that's the rest of the story).
Before I took this picture, I notified Bev, who began figuring out which mountain was on fire. She called the BLM Fire Supervisor, who seemed somewhat aware of the situation, as well as the Cedar City Wildfire line... they said they'd send a plane over to check it out.
After dark, we could even see the red glow of flames WITHOUT the binoculars. Heck, I could even see it without my glasses... and I'm extremely nearsighted.
Let's see, that was Tuesday, July 17.
Here's what the fire looked like just 22 hours later on Wednesday, July 18 at about 3 pm.
This time I got on the phone to the folks who should care...
I started with the BLM. After all... this is most likely on their property. The first lady transferred me to another one, who said she thought they knew about this fire and had maybe sent jumpers to it.
Just to be sure, she transferred me to the Cedar City Fire Dispatch. Well, they thought they knew about it, but couldn't explain how come after nearly 24 hours it wasn't listed on any incident sites... like Utah Fire Info.
She didn't seemed amused or concerned... but transferred me to the "Fire Information Officer", where I got a voice message... no, I'm not telling you what I said. But I will assure you that I hung up before I left a message!
In disgust, I finally called Dixie to see if she could get the message through that we had a serious fire brewing. She called our "local guys" who said "they were watching it".
Oh great... where I come from, we don't wait for it to get bigger... we go put the damn thing out!
Ok, yesterday was our twice monthly trip to St. George to stock up on groceries and supplies. Bev drives the Enterprise Senior Services Bus, and I'm a "senior citizen" so it works out very nicely.
Boy was it ever smoky in St. George! They're surrounded by several wildfires from Arizona on the south, to Zion National Park on the east.
On our way home, coming up the long hill (just south of "The Ledges") Bev spotted a huge plume of smoke... "Hey, bet that's the fire on 'our mountain'!"
An hour later, we were home safe and sound, looking at this...
Mom had even called Dixie, our neighbor to see if our valley would be safe. Dixie assured her that as long as the wind kept coming from the S-SW, we'd be fine... and that is the prevailing wind this time of year.
Finally, I was able to get the following data on this fire.
When we reported it, it was apparently a "flare-up" from a lightening strike on July 16. It was less than 10 acres when we first saw it.
Within then next 48 hours, it first grew and "they began watching it" at 100 acres. Finally yesterday, it was given a name... "The Paradise Fire".
It went from 100 acres to over 5000 acres in a matter of hours, and consumed 3 structures as well as caused the evacuation of all of Hamlin Valley.
This evacuation isn't easy as that's a very remote area. All services are "off grid"... satellite phones, solar and wind power, as well as unpaved roads.
Last night we could see the flames. It was amazing how far northeast the fire had traveled. This morning the fire (and smoke) had "laid down" quite a bit. But I would expect that it will pick up again later this afternoon when the winds pick up.
We're expecting afternoon winds in excess of 20 mph... nothing unusual here.
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Must be pretty scary for you having the fires so close! Pretty county out there. I don't think I have ever seen pictures before.
Hi threecollie,
Thanks, it's not so much scary as worriesome. Scary would be if we had a fire in our valley. The old-timers here say they've not seen a fire in this valley in over 30 years.
Thankfully, there's a lot of alfalfa raised here, as well as corn and potatoes.
It's just in our "mile square" as well as a couple of the miles squares around us where it's really sandy, and filled with sagebrush, greasewood, and tumbleweed... as well as sand dunes.
I'll keep getting more pictures up as this is incredibly beautiful country.
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