Wildfire Summer

One thing that I didn't think about when moving here was the fire danger in this part of the country (especially with global warming, sorry republicans - but yes it does exist!). There have been fires all summer, mainly out of our part of the state, some in UT, up in the Ketchum and McCall area. But Thursday it was our turn.

The fire in the picture is right behind Hidden Springs. The brick building in the picture is the Merc, and if you haven't been here to visit us yet, the black roof that you can see over the top of the Merc is ours. The fire burned for most of Thursday afternoon, over 100 acres up in the hills. There were ground crews, two helicopters and two bombers figting it for most of the day. You can see the house it got closest to up on the hill in the picture.

Our nieghborhood was never in real danger. In fact I sat on our friends swingset down the street in the afternoon with my buddy Greg watching the helicopters pick up buckets of water from the ranch across the street to dump on the fire line, as did most of the folks on our street. It was interesting and a reminder that eventhough we live in the biggest city in the state, we're still just a little speck in the wilderness up here.