Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Is Something Burning Out There?

Well, fire season seems to have started early this year. And once again, we've got to have a major fire outside of town. I can remember when we went years without a big one that threatened everything, but that's not the case any more.

If you've been hearing about the Station fire, that's the one that is affecting me.

Fortunately, it isn't affecting me too much. It is burning on multiple fronts, but the one closest to me is buring north east instead of south west. Odds are it won't make a run for town.

However, the smoke and ash have been bad today. It's been overcast all day, and not with moisture. And a couple of times after going outside I've found ash in my hair.

On the plus side, the humidity is higher today than it has been. We've been having very hot and very dry weather for the last week. It's still very hot, but not nearly as dry. Not deep south humid, either, of course, but better for fighting the fire.

Also in the plus column is the lack of wind. Yesterday, we were having 20 mph winds, but those are the first "bad" winds we've been having since the fire started. And compare that to the 60 mph winds we have had when the Santa Annas get started during the more traditional fire season of mid-fall, and even those aren't bad.

I'm really hoping that this will mean a better "fire season" later this year. With all this are already burned, how can it not be better? Unfortunately, there is still plenty of area to burn, so we'll see if it actually is better or not.

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