Coming home tonight, I noticed several fire engines at the top of the hill on Elwood. My first thought was that there must have been a serious wreck. A police officer had the road blocked off, and I was barely able to turn onto my street.
Of course, I had to go check it out. At the top of the hill, there were fire trucks everywhere. On the way up LipBuster Kathy called me and asked if I knew that Turkey Mountain was on fire? It was along here that I had begun to smell smoke, although there was not a sign of smoke visible. I tucked into the woods and ran parallel to the Powerline Trail for about a half mile, and when I veered back onto the Powerline, there was a couple of mountain bikers there talking. Turns out one of theme was associated with the fire department, and asked me sternly if I had ran past the fire trucks pictured above. Truthfully, I had, but there was no personnel there. I told him I was running on the eastern trails (which was technically true) and he told me I needed to stay over there.
You can see that I did not stay "east". I detoured north, and then west on lesser used trails, and eventually came up Jelly Legs Trail to Rock City. I almost stumbled right onto another bike-mounted fire fighter on patrol, so I kept out of sight and detoured further around the mountain toward where I thought the fire was.
We have had very little rain the past few months (other than 30 inches of snow) and we have also had (rare for Oklahoma) low hunidities. This, coupled with high winds has made our state a tender-box primed for grass and forest fires.
This fire seemingly started right in the middle of nowhere. As best I can tell, it did not start near the road. This means either a meth lab malfunctioned, a hiker had a smoke and tossed his butt, or one of those super-sonic corgis ignited some dry leaves whilst darting down the trail faster than the speed of sound.
In a way, this is disturbing. But really, all that was burned was dried leaves, briers, old dead limbs from ice storms of years past, maybe some tossed bottles and Gu wrappers, and hopefully chiggers and ticks.
Occasionally, I'd see flames shooting high into the sky. That was when the flames ignited a pile of old dead brush or dried weeds that were more of a problem anyway. It seemed that the fire fighters had things somewhat contained, and I left believing that our mountain would not be incinerated. Let it rain, and all this burnt area will be greener than ever.
Of course, I had to go check it out. At the top of the hill, there were fire trucks everywhere. On the way up LipBuster Kathy called me and asked if I knew that Turkey Mountain was on fire? It was along here that I had begun to smell smoke, although there was not a sign of smoke visible. I tucked into the woods and ran parallel to the Powerline Trail for about a half mile, and when I veered back onto the Powerline, there was a couple of mountain bikers there talking. Turns out one of theme was associated with the fire department, and asked me sternly if I had ran past the fire trucks pictured above. Truthfully, I had, but there was no personnel there. I told him I was running on the eastern trails (which was technically true) and he told me I needed to stay over there.
You can see that I did not stay "east". I detoured north, and then west on lesser used trails, and eventually came up Jelly Legs Trail to Rock City. I almost stumbled right onto another bike-mounted fire fighter on patrol, so I kept out of sight and detoured further around the mountain toward where I thought the fire was.
We have had very little rain the past few months (other than 30 inches of snow) and we have also had (rare for Oklahoma) low hunidities. This, coupled with high winds has made our state a tender-box primed for grass and forest fires.
This fire seemingly started right in the middle of nowhere. As best I can tell, it did not start near the road. This means either a meth lab malfunctioned, a hiker had a smoke and tossed his butt, or one of those super-sonic corgis ignited some dry leaves whilst darting down the trail faster than the speed of sound.
In a way, this is disturbing. But really, all that was burned was dried leaves, briers, old dead limbs from ice storms of years past, maybe some tossed bottles and Gu wrappers, and hopefully chiggers and ticks.
Occasionally, I'd see flames shooting high into the sky. That was when the flames ignited a pile of old dead brush or dried weeds that were more of a problem anyway. It seemed that the fire fighters had things somewhat contained, and I left believing that our mountain would not be incinerated. Let it rain, and all this burnt area will be greener than ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment