Der dsl is back up and running, at least for the moment, and your 8:00 p.m. Creekside report is an interesting one: Behind our house the entire hillside foilage has burnt and the whole opposing mountain looks like Sulfur Mountain at Yellowstone: Steam there/smoke here is rising upwards at every angle and from every nook and crany over the entire mountainside and, intermittently, an entire tree will give in to the heat and "torch" Roman candle style. It is the most eerie of sights that you can imagine--photos to come via Stephanie shortly--thanks, again, Steph for helping others have the continuity of what is happening here--one of nature's truly remarkable and soul-rattling experiences.
The fire is starting to "lay down" for the night, but not before the entire hillside across from the Blue Damsel (1/4 mile downstream from us), with one "roller" (another new term for a log afire that tumbles down hill) set the entire 20 yards below it aglow, bringing in BOTH of the fire-monitoring water dropping helicopters to our aid. For those of you who have been to our house, the fire is now at eye level as you stand on the upper back porch and the buckets of water were being opened to spill their contents just a few feet above that. Yes, we will get photos to you, as son Tyler is shooting digital images on the river, us having just served over 20 hamburgers to an otherwise ravished and wonderful hand crew.
This has been a very busy day for us and, with well considered forethought, for the second time, we have demurred to the Sheriff/now M.P.'s suggestion that we evacuate. Simply stated, with the fire laying down, we feel safe here and, to protect ourselves and our property, will again do an entire night vigil, looking for flying embers and other rollers on the far side of the Creek.
Of particular note, five days ago, while moving a large and heavy firehose in the back yard, I cracked my regular glasses' frame in half, and, for the last several days have been working with sunglasses--not really helpful when (a) you are almost blind without glasses and (b) doing 4:00 a.m. night watch looking for bright flying objects. Thanks Marin Optermetric for overnighting glasses to me (they came by way of Billings for some odd reason) and for RCPA president John Menson who took the just arrived frames into town for swapping of lenses. What a delight to see again, but, on second thought, some of the images over the last two days are perhaps better blurred.
We, too, are going to "lay down" for the night; I will be sending multiple photos to Steph to post. They will NOT be posted with the stories but will be a sequel of events commencing with night shots of last night (something I called "Friday Night Lights") and will take you up through the mind twisting events of today--sorry again for our failure to communicate in an orderly manner.
A final salute to our ground troups here, from Montana, California and Alaska--to a person they are marvelously dedicated professionals who have become dear, dear friends to us in this most interesting of times. Thanks also to Incident Commander Tom Heintz and his entire team for giving Rock Creek priority in aircraft today--it was the difference that made the Rock Creek's Maginot Line stand, unlike its French predecessor.
Good Night all!
RCR
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