26 June 2012

I am sad. It is hot and that makes me miserable. This is a record, five days of triple digit temperatures. And The fires. Good God, the fires. There's been one up north for the whole month, then one south, and we saw one begin in the mountains when we were hiking. Now one in Boulder. I think it makes 15. Denver is shrouded in smoke. It's like some apocalypse film. It's hard to breathe. Some people are even being evacuated because of ash instead of danger of fire.

My beautiful state.

It's not the first time this has happened in my lifetime. Two notable years were 1994 and 2002. In 94 a fire on a mountain called Storm King about 10 miles from my house killed 14 firefighters. I-70 was closed for days. The sun was an oppressive hazy blob.In September of the same year, heavy rains caused the bare mountainside to collapse and close the the interstate again.

In 2002, the Coal Seam fire burned 12,299 acres just south of the other fire. Again the interstate was closed. Again, we could hardly breathe.

When everything is so dry, all we want is rain, but the danger of that is lightning causing more fires, and the rain causing mudslides on burned land.

Nothing is safe.

But at least the sunsets are pretty...

3 comments:

Abby said...

It's very sad and worrisome. Last night, I could only helplessly watch as favorite hiking spots and landmarks went up in flames. Breathing is a chore. We watch, we wait, we hope for the best.

Abby said...

Is your boyfriend's parent's home okay?

Larz said...

Yes, all is well there.