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During the night of Aug 16, 2003
A lightning strike cause a fire to start roughly 8 Kms away from me on the other side of the lake, which poses no danger to me. By late afternoon the winds had died down enough so that the haze lifted and I was able to get a few pictures of the smoke column.
Scroll down to view more recent pictures as the fire has progressed.
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Aug 18, 2003
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During the evening in about the center of the picture just above the powerline a tree can be seen starting to candle. About 2 hrs later as darkness approached the flames are more visible.
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Was awakened just past midnight, went out and snapped this picture(left). Once again I was awakened this time just past 2:00 am, by this time the fire had increased signifigantly in size. This picture was taken from the back side of the house, where just 2 hours earlier it could not be seen at all from this vantage point. Not much detail can be seen, the smoke plume is dimly lit. However just above the 2 lower left hand points of lights is a subdivision with about 41 homes, I believe. It is too dark for the camera to pick up the lights from the houses.
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August 19, 2003
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After work, I grabbed the camera and headed out to find a better location to get an un-obstructed view of the fire. This picture shows the fire creeping down the moutain towards the houses along the shore(cant be seen in the photo.)
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August 23, 2003
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| The smoke that had so thickly blanketed the valley bottom lifted so that I could view the extent of the fires damage and progress. Since my last update on Aug 20 the fire had advanced on the city quickly forcing more than 26 000 residents to evacuate, and reportedly destroyed more than 200 homes. |
