It has been many years since we spent the summer enjoying the beautiful Colorado mountains. I hadn't realized how much I had missed the wildflowers that grow everywhere - some lasting only a week or two and others lasting all summer.
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The red letters say "we are right here" with a line drawn to our rig. You can see why we like it here - right on the Rio Grande River. TaDa - I figured out how to make the pictures larger. This is a learn-as-you-go project.
These lilies are so delicate. In the picture below, you can see Deep Creek at the edge of the grass behind the field of lilies.
The West Fork and Windy Pass fires started on June 5, but we really didn't see any evidence of the fires here until about 10 days later. One day, these huge smoke plumes arose to the southeast of us. At first we thought they were clouds, but soon realized they were smoke plumes rising over 30,000 feet into the sky. We could see them growing by the second. The official description follows:
The West Fork Complex fire was
so hot that it spawned numerous pyrocumulus clouds-tall, cauliflower-shaped
clouds that billowed high above the surface. Pyrocumulus clouds are similar to
cumulus clouds, but the heat that forces the air to rise comes from fire
instead of sun-warmed ground.
Let me assure you that these smoke plumes are not nearly as close as they appear. They are to the west of South Fork, about 30 miles away.
The perspective of this picture makes it look like the fire is almost on top of our rig. Thank goodness that is not the case.
The same day we had the smoke plumes, we had ash collecting on our patio. We had a little the following day but not much at all since then. Notice the wood chips on the ground, evidence of one of the few days Alan was able to carve. It has been quite windy, making outdoor carving difficult.
This smoke is coming from the Papoose fire that started several days after the West Fork fire but is giving us much more trouble here with the smoke. It is to the southwest of us, again quite a ways away.
Sunset one evening looking towards the Papoose fire. The color isn't fire but the sun reflection.
We went to a fire incident meeting in Creede on Tuesday, June 25. It was very interesting and informative. These fires have now been joined into the West Fork Fire Complex and have burned more than 83,000 acres without losing any structures. They are burning bone-dry pine and spruce that have been killed by the pine and spruce beetles over the past few years. There is no containment and the only thing that will put them out is a lot of rain or when the snows come. As Alan says, "this needs to happen from Mexico up to the Canadian border and it is not a question of if it will happen, but when it will happen.
We came away from the meeting realizing that fire fighting at this point is very complicated and technical. There are nearly 1500 fire fighters working on these fires along with air support. This fire complex is now the No. 1 priority fire in the country.
About Creede, however, this is what we were told at the incident meeting:
But at least residents in Creede won’t need to worry
about evacuations. The town has considerable defensible space – wide-open
meadows with little vegetation – making it a relatively safe place, said Russ
Long, operations section chief for the fire.
“This is a safety zone,” Long said at the meeting. “You
have a very safe town."
If there is any evacuation in Creede, it will be because of air quality, not fire. The smoke now varies from a light haze to fairly heavy. Time will tell, I guess.
On to more fun things. This is Doc, our next door neighbor dog being trimmed by Jon and Angela. He is in the tub to contain all the hair. Isn't he darling?
A deer along the highway on our drive to Lake City on June 26.
Downtown Creede on June 27. Of course, the merchants are struggling so we did our part to help the economy with purchase of a fishing license and a little gear, Creede Repertory Theater tickets, groceries and lunch.
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