The Margaret fire ...

[kishenehn]

My apologies for nearly a month of LJ radio silence, but things have been surprisingly busy up here at Baptiste the last three weeks. Definitely not something that someone sitting in a fire lookout is usually able to say

Comments

[scottks]

I hope the fire is removing the dense bad stuff and saving the tall trees.

[kishenehn]

At least from my vantage point, it doesn't seem like a very intense fire ... it definitely took out a lot of trees along with the undergrowth, but there are also large patches of undamaged trees within the perimeter, so in the end I don't think it will look too bad.

[lookfar]

Number 7 is my favorite - the jagged trees silhouetted against the pale colors of the mountains.

It's interesting to me that you are not scared at all about the fire coming your way. I guess you know the topography well enough.

[kishenehn]

It was fascinating to me how much the view changed over the course of a day, and over the course of the fire's overall progression. It felt weird to be intrigued by such destruction, but there definitely was a beauty in it.

My favorite shots were the sunsets ... the late-evening sun shining through the smoke was always impressive.

Even at its closest, the fire was still eight miles away from me, so I wasn't too worried. If it had ever gotten dangerously close, the Forest Service would have sent a helicopter out to retrieve me and the dogs in an instant.

[lookfar]

Hey, I can totally understand people being fascinated by fires. Big, destructive things that most people never see. I'd go to a house fire, definitely, but I'd be tactful if the owners were there; they don't want to hear you saying o wow it's kind of beautiful.

[kensmind]

Thanks for the update. I was thinking about you because when I got back to Cranbrook last week, the sky was pretty smoky and I heard the same thing about Seattle, so I wondered what was burning down your way? Not that any forest fires are good, but I'm glad that this summer didn't seem to be as bad in that department as some others I can remember.

[kishenehn]

Welcome back to the Great Northwest!! :)

And yep, while there were a few good-sized fires, this turned out to be a surprisingly smoke-free year, all in all. Just a handful of days at the lookout where the smoke was problematic, a real contrast to some summers where I sat in thick smoke for weeks. BC seems like it had a fairly good year, too, especially in comparison to how horrific things were in 2021 ...

[eyelid]

Why was the fire officer happy that the fire reignited?

[kishenehn]

Maybe that statement was an oversimplification, because nobody in our office is eager for the destruction of the forest ... but fighting fires is his job, and it's the reason he comes to work in the morning, and so it adds something to his life when he actually gets to do it.

[flying_blind]

Only 1200 acres burned since August 22? Hah! Your fires are picayune. Our Mosquito fire only got started on September 6, and has already devoured 76,000 acres. Yeah, California! Down here, Margaret is the sort of fire we use to toast marshmallows.

She's very photogenic, though.

[kishenehn]

Oh, that's definitely true! We've had pretty horrific fires over the decades here in Montana -- the big one back in 1910, in particular -- but compared to the Southwest and West-coast states we're getting off ridiculously easy these days. In part I think that's because climate change hasn't his Montana quite as hard as it's hit you guys ... at least yet.

Much of the smoke in our summer sky comes from fires in California and Oregon, though ... so we're not completely off the hook.