The Deer Creek Fire, burning at the southeastern base of Utah’s La Sal Mountains, just west of the state line with Colorado, is now at 10,000-plus acres with 0% containment. (Note: As of 10 p.m. Monday, it had grown to more than 11,000 acres.)
That’s the fire closest to us, and fires at Grand Canyon and Black Canyon of the Gunnison national parks have resulted in the destruction of the historic Grand Canyon Lodge (and other structures) and evacuations of visitors and National Park Service employees, not to mention people who live in affected areas nearby.
Many other fires are burning across the West’s drought-dry landscapes, as well as in Canada, while floods devastate other regions. My heart has a hard time taking it all in.
*****
I drafted the above post (showing Sancho in a very smoky Spring Creek Basin a few days ago) and scheduled it … and then I went out to Spring Creek Basin last night and saw that smoke from two more fires ā Wright Draw and Turner Gulch fires near Gateway (about halfway-ish between Disappointment Valley and Grand Junction or about an hour and a half away as the vehicle motors) ā is visible on our northern horizon. Argh.
Vantage point: above Spring Creek (mostly dry but with pockets of water from which at least a few bands of mustangs are drinking) in Spring Creek Basin looking north/northwest. The canyon is not far to my left. The obvious smoke starting at the left side of the image is from Utah’s Deer Creek Fire. Smoke from the Wright Draw and Turner Gulch fires shows as a yellowish line of smoke immediately above the bumpy-hills horizon just right of center.
Post-sunset from outside Spring Creek Basin. Utah’s La Sal Mountains are visible at left, and smoke from the Deer Creek Fire stretches across the entire horizon. … It looked like virga, which was completely wild and surreal.
We need “wetting rain” as I read recently. Hopefully it’s coming Friday/Saturday … along with thunderstorm chances (we do NOT need the lightning!!!). Please keep all those in the paths of the wildfires (everywhere), as well as those battling the blazes, in your prayers. And please, please, please, stay safe.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 
It truly has become overwhelming hasn’t it, TJ. We are encircled with fires as once again our part of the west is rainless and parched and a box of tinder. So much heartbreak already. So many beautiful acres gone for generations. It really is difficult to take in. And all the while, much more rain than can be absorbed falls elsewhere with resulting destructive floods. Wish things could balance out somehow. And great photo of our handsome Sancho by the way.
Raining right now! 4 p.m. Prelude of thunder and wind, and I used to really love *storms*, and now I really love *RAIN*.
Praying for some good soaking rain! The weather seems to be really strange lately!
Thanks, Karen. I hope ya’ll get some good rains to quell the fires in Canada and wash the smoke from your sky.
TJ, Are you and the mustangs truly safe?Is there a plan
We’re surrounded by wild. The plan is whatever nature throws at us, really. š With a little bit of ingenuity. Remember when I sent you a pic of a lightning-struck tree that was burning, and you told me to call the fire department, and I said I AM the DVFD? It’s like that … with a great dose of help from our wonderful and most-excellent Benchmark Lookout fire watchers, Rick and Linda, as well as our excellent and most-wonderful BLM and USFS firefighting guys and gals!
Hope you and yours stay safe too TJ and we pray the wetting rains will come soon š
Thanks so much, and I hope that if you’re in the dry, you also get the rains!
It’s heart-breaking. There are fires in the San Juans now, around Pagosa. Today I saw two kinds of wildland fire trucks in my town — one a Hot Shots truck. The other had been to our local fire department to pick up a UTV. I go a little nuts when I see those trucks, having been evacuated from a big fire in SoCal in 2003. When I finally got to go home to the mountains, most of the cars on the freeway with me were wildland fire trucks from all over the West. I passed one from Montana and one from Wyoming, and I lost it. I don’t think I ever got it back, either. People in my town stood in their yards with signs painted on sheets, “Thank you firefighters.” There was a small cafe and a two pump gas station, finally opened again, and those firefighters needed both very badly. Maybe they needed our signs, too.
I get it. If I have any kind of PTSD (and I do NOT make light of anyone who has it bad-and-for-real), I have it from the summer of driving to Durango from Mancos every afternoon for work and seeing the massive, nuclear-explosion plume of smoke from the Missionary Ridge Fire. š¦ It gets me at a visceral level that I never thought possible. Appreciation NEVER goes wrong!! It’s amazing what those men and women do, putting their lives on the line to protect not only land in their own states but to run to help those in other states. HUGE appreciation. Stay safe!
You stay safe, too. Many of the horses in my CA town just took off and came back. One of my neighbors rode her horse out of town ahead of the fire.
Now that’s a visual! š Can’t do that with these ponies, but hopefully they would get themselves safe. Fortunately, we’re so wide open, I don’t think there’s a lot of “fuel.”
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