Burning Up ... Literally

 There are so many fires in the west right now.  I guess it just hadn't occurred to me that we could have one in our own back yard.  My sister and her family were evacuated from their home due to the High Park fire in Colorado.  Now we have our very own smoke to deal with.

 They're calling it the Fontenelle Fire and you can read more about it here or here.  That second link takes a little while to load, but once it does it shows a map.  If you zoom way out on the map you can see where all the fires are in the west - and there are a lot of them.  Ours is roughly 30 miles from us, with no chance of getting to us, but we sure are getting a lot of smoke and ash.  I was surprised by it Tuesday afternoon, when the sky suddenly became orange, and smoky.  The front edge of the smoke got to us and we could hardly see more than two blocks.  The car had ash all over it within minutes. 

 I'm really shocked at how far the ash and debris carries.  I'm not sure you can tell in the picture, but there are unburned pine needles in the ash too - along with burnt ash and other debris.  These pictures were taken within half an hour of the smoke moving in, so you can guess how much more we've had.

 Later in the evening, the wind changed and the smoke lifted a bit, which was nice.  We even were able to go for a little walk without any breathing difficulty.

 It was eerie when the sun peeked under the smoke cloud.  Everything was glowing orange.

I was hoping that it would just be the one day problem, but yesterday afternoon - around the same time as the day before - the smoke moved in again.  I wish the pictures showed more accurately the color of the sun - it was neon pink the first day, and bright orange/red yesterday.  Anyway, I hope we don't have to deal with this smokiness all summer.  I'm glad we don't live in the town that is right next to the fire.