It was kind of ironic, because when Amber and I were out riding two days before, we were saying how it felt like summer in the woods, but also how it didn't yet smell like summer in the woods.Let me explain....because it is still technically spring around here, the Scotch broom are in full bloom, and the wooded areas smell cloyingly sweet right now; whereas during the summer months, the woods smell like hot pitch and burning/hot pine needles. (Well technically "fir" needles, but I always call them "pine" needles)
Therefore, I was really surprised when we got a phone call from the fire department (Kevin is a volunteer) asking Kev if he knew which road would give them the best access to the fire. I was like "Fire??? What fire???" But sure enough, if you looked towards the mountain, there were two distinct plumes of smoke rising up out of the foothills.
It was soon determined that the fire was not where we had been the other night; rather it was on the Sunset Lake side of things, and the local departments were told to just stand-by. Around 8:30 that night (Sunday) we took a quick ride up where we had been the night before, and there was the fire.We sat and watched a helicopter dropping water on it for about 40 minutes, and then we took off for home as it was getting dark.
Now....the reason I called this post the "Twilight Zone" is because there was never any mention of this fire on any of the local news channels. In fact, had we not taken these pictures, it would almost be hard to prove that there ever was a fire. (I am obviously exaggerating here, as I am sure the other side of these hills looks scorched)Those of us that live down here in the "South end" often joke about the news not caring about what happens to us, but to not even mention a small forest fire??? Come on people...lol!!!! I even googled it and checked different forest fire websites, but nothing mentions any incident in our area. Kind of weird, huh???
PS-Sorry for the poor quality of pictures. It was about 8:45 at night and I cannot believe my camera even picked up anything.
15 comments:
Mel, your blogs are getting better and better! By the way we went to Wally's drive in sunday night and saw that smoke coming from the mtn. but I never heard anything from the news so thought it must have been logging or campers...or whatever. Good thing we have people like you!!
Oh my, forest fires are scary! Is it out now?
I have studied the photos closely and they were all photoshopped. There was no fire!
I hope it stayed small and was put out quick!
I know exactly what you mean about being left out! We get left out too, during the snow this year, they would say on the news, how much snow my area had and I'd just laugh at them, because if they actually hit the real town, they would've seen that we had over 2 feet of snow, instead they said there was a foot. So funny!
Hope that fire is under control! Fire is always scary!
*tisk tisk& here you had me all excited that you had Twilight news! (I am such a Twi-hard!) lol
Weird that it wouldnt make the news...I think it is important for people to know how common forest fires are so maybe more people will take care not to start them!!!
PS- My brother-in-law offically completed his fire training TODAY!! and is now a volunteer fire fighter!
How disturbing that it wasn't mentioned! But now you have me very curious as to which little town you do live in!
we were up north this weekend on germany's north sea, and i kid you not it was still light out at 10:30 pm. around here it gets dark at about 9:30. weirdy, i have such a longing to go as north as possible and enjoy no night! or vice versa!
anyway you mentioned twilight zone and i always hum the theme song when something weird happens. sadly, no one in germany recognizes the song, so the song is meaningless and i have to stop humming and say, "this is a very strange situation, isn't it?"
*giggle*
i almost caught the mt adams area on fire once, i had no idea a duraflame could still be smoldering the next morning, when i kicked it around, the bushes caught on fire immediately. i fruck out and used tons of my horse's water to douse it. then i told the ride manager to keep an eye on my campsite all day. embarrassing.
so you live in a newsvoid huh? do you live in a mailvoid too? i know people who live in the south end who have no mail service (let alone garbage service) and they have to drive to the post office to get their mail. that's country livin!
~lytha
Yikes! Cool photos...but not a cool fire.
I hope it's all under control now.
~Lisa
I'm not a big watcher of news or reader of newspapers....too much bad news. However, the odd time I get a glimpse of something. The forest fires in my province are already making the headlines and it's not even the highpoint of summer yet...stay safe down there!
You are so right this year is gonna go down in the record books for odd weather - I mean jumps to summer like this has happened before on myside of the state - but your side usually remains wet.
We have this crazy @ss winter and then like 2 days of spring and then August like weather - it's nuts. Great pictures of the smoke - say would you mind if I copied a couple of those to my desktop? I have a thing for painting images of forest fires...
You had me fooled. I thought I was going to see pictures of Edward, Bella, and Jacob. Boy do I have Twilight on the brain.
But weird! So weird about that fire and all and not it even being on the news! Crazy!!
I think the photos are great.
News? There is no such thing as the "news" around here. If you want to know anything you have to go to the "coffee shop" in the mornings. It's amazing how those old farts always know what is going on in the area-LOL
It's too bad there was a fire, I hate to see any landscape ruined by the flames and always think of the animals that may have been trapped. On the other hand, glad to hear it wasn't near enough to do you harm. It figures that the news wouldn't report it, I'm sure the top story of the night was about some celebrity on some idiotic reality show, so real news doesn't get reported.
Sounds like our area regarding the news. There is no news unless it comes from Portland. I guess we don't exist. That could be a good thing huh?
We may be in for a hot summer, and that could mean a lot of forest fires. It has been an unusual year for weather-related stuff.
Speaking of fires, we went camping up in the mountains out of Dayton, Washington (outside of Walla Walla) one summer near these huge Grand Canyon-like gorges at a place called Goose Corral. Totally awesome once you got there, but a real bitch getting there with the big horse trailer and all the skinny roads and canyons - not fun - but anyway, suffice it to say that we were in the middle of nowhere and if something happened, we were going nowhere fast. The eve of July 4, the most amazing thunder and lightening show EVER!! Next morning, several forest fires could be observed below in the canyons. Totally cool - firefighters had to be dropped in by plane, and some rode mules down. Yikes!! We just watched the whole show from above. No worries!
Hey, wanna try something fun? Show up at Mt Baldie on Sunday for an introduction to my favorite horsey sport, orienteering! My old mentor is giving a clinic and hey, that's your area! You'd be a really big help to people who've never been there, and you would love this sport!
Check out my blog for the whole story today.
~lytha
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