Uh oh. Another new fire (!), the Sharp Canyon Fire, started two days ago south-southwest of Disappointment Valley, north of the community of Cahone, and the plume was visible beyond the south valley ridge. I was in Spring Creek Basin when I saw the above-pictured air tanker fly over. It dropped out of sight toward the fire before I got to see it drop its load of slurry.
The Watch Duty app (which I just recently learned about and is *awesome*) alert showed the fire at 35 acres, but that was a BIG plume. Yesterday morning, it had been updated to 400 acres. As the eagle soars, it’s by far the closest current fire to Disappointment Valley and Spring Creek Basin, but it’s south of the Dolores River in its deep canyon, so the fire itself isn’t likely to endanger the mustangs. The pic is looking southish from the middle-ish (!) of Spring Creek Basin. Filly Peak at lower right is within the basin; the heavily treed ridge in the background is beyond the basin. Land goes from BLM to San Juan National Forest to private the farther south that eagle flies.
And the tanker flying back northeast over the basin to its base … possibly Montrose (?).
I looked up this handy website to identify the tanker, and it looks like it was a DC-10, or a VLAT! That’s a Very Large Air Tanker, and it was. From the website: “These airtankers, also referred to as VLATs, can deliver thousands of gallons of fire retardant at one time. Because of their size, they are less maneuverable than smaller airtankers. VLATs drop fire retardant at least 250 feet above the top of the vegetation.
“The DC-10, which can be used to support wildland firefighters on the ground, can deliver up to 9,400 gallons of fire retardant at one time. The U.S. Forest Service is responsible for managing the VLAT contracts.”
With hope, the fire will be contained soon, but it is DRY out there – which is everywhere here. We’ve been under red-flag/fire-weather warnings/watches/advisories multiple days this summer (and are in a run of such days currently).
Huge support to all those engaged in fighting these wildfires across the West (and for our neighbors in Canada, too!), from the land and from the sky.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 
New fire this morning on Stoner / Taylor Mesas just north of Dolores. 😮💨 Will this ever end. “Dry” just doesn’t begin to describe our current conditions any more. Glad the fire out near Cahone is no where near you, TJ!
That fire started at least yesterday … and the nuclear-looking plume scared the crap out of me when I went out to the basin yesterday evening. 😦 It’ll be tomorrow’s blog post … I just couldn’t bear to update this one (already scheduled) with that. You and Denny stay safe out there!!
I hope all of you stay safe! We are getting smoke from the Canadian wildfires here in NYS. Its warm – mid-80s – and pretty dry – we had some rain about a week ago, I guess. But I have a lot of springs all over my 4 acres and seems they are all dry now. Of course I rant about them in the springtime but when they are dry it gets scary these days. No one is immune from fires now.
Stay safe, Maggie
I don’t mean to be “it’s all relative,” but how we would welcome high temps in the 80s! 🙂 We’ve been in the mid- to upper 90s, though thankfully, 100s here (at least according to my temp gauge) this summer have been scarce, but other parts of Colorado have seen many days in the 100s, and it has sure felt like it here. Stay safe, indeed!
I have to add – no complaints about the 80s – we had 90s the week before – and between my allergies (to whatever) and the smoke – I can sympathize with you folks out West!
The smoke is not so bad here in MI today! We are supposed to get some rain later today! Hope they get the fires out your way under control! Hoping for some rain to help!
Hope you get your rain – and relief from the smoke. It’s bad from ya’ll all the way to where Maggie is in New York state! 😦 I’m so thankful for all the firefighters, our local guys and gals as well as those from other states! They are some HARD-WORKING people!! Praying for rain!
Thank you for sharing this!!
Huge kudos to those pilots – and the firefighters on the ground. They’re amazing.
First, I love the DC-10. Second, I remember so many times in my life when seeing a VLAT was both comforting and frightening — the fire combination, I guess. And yes, from the bottom of my heart, Thank You Firefighters.
I was thinking the same thing: Seeing those massive planes drop those loads of red slurry is fantastic … but to know the reason WHY it’s being dropped is terrifying. Any day now, the rains will come … right?!
I hope so 😢