Foggy Hills - Not

Remember the pictures of my hills with the morning fog/clouds on them.   This is not one of them.

This is not either, though this is the way my valley looks right now.

To see this in the distant hills is a bit disconcerting when the skies are blue with big puffy white clouds and it is the middle of the afternoon on a day when it is 70+ degrees.

My Hill is the one on the left in this shot.

Before the turn to the road that leads into my valley this sign has been temporarily posted.  By the National Forest Service.  And just to make it very clear, this is not fog.

As you drive into my valley it becomes quite obvious that the fire is on the opposite side of the valley from the House on the Hill.  This is where our land begins on the left side of the road. 

This is on the right side of the road

and this is a neighor's driveway on that same side.

I've been trying to stay in because even if the fire is across the valley, the smoke is not.  It's like stepping out into heavy leaf smoke and the air is filled with bits of ash.  Not healthy for the lungs.  Today I had to make a quick run to town so I turned on the air and took a drive.  Okay, I admit it, I had to see what was going on.  I drove past this sign

up the windy road to Duggar Mountain

and saw this.   

Scorched ground, ashes and fallen trees. You could see how high the flames had reached by the burnt bark on some of the tree trunks. It made me feel quite ill. 

This is about 10 feet to the left and the dirt pile in the corner is part of a fire break pushed up by the Forest Service bull dozers.  I wish I had thought to get a better photo of it.  I was actually standing on part of it for the last shot.

After I got home, a Forest Ranger came by to let us know what was going on.  He left this with us so we would know what they were doing.  Our road is the black winding road in the upper right hand corner.  The marked square is our property, the small star is the House on the Hill.  You can see the fire is across the road and across the river that thinks it is Terrapin Creek.  The black Xes are where the dozers have bladed fire breaks.  The fire is almost fully contained now.

I was very glad he brought this.  Even after taking my drive and seeing all the smoke and even some of the damage the full impact did not hit me until M came home from work after dark and called me out to see this.

You can barely see the outline of the hills directly across from the end of the House on the Hill.   That is a line of fire and this picture only caught a small fragment of the fire you could actually see.  There were several lines scattered over the hills.   The line of fire you can see actually stretched all the way to the top of the hill and across both of the trees in the shot.  You can see a little bitty dot to the right of the tree on the right.

I was surprised I got anything. My camera takes only mediocre photos and is definitely not up to night photograpy.

 

We are hoping and praying for some serious rain, it's hard watching the neighborhood burn.