There is a wildfire burning about five miles north of the airport.
I first noticed the thin wisps of white smoke about four hours ago. Now an ominous black cloud towers in the north, sending a long streamer of reddish-gray smoke south along the ridgeline at about thirty-five hundred feet.
We aren't expecting rain until early next week. Meantime, most of the state is baking under a dome of high pressure. Record high temperatures have been set for the past several days--in the sixties and seventies. It's hard to believe there was frost on the deck Tuesday morning. I dread the thought of another scorching summer, another record wildfire season.
Wildfires burned over six million acres last year, but there are plenty more acres left to burn this year. From the way the season is already shaping up, it is likely to happen.
The smoke plume has extended far enough to the west now to intersect the falling arc of the sun, lending a familiar orangish tinge to the daylight. I hate this. I hate the hot, dry days of pitiless sunshine. I hate living with the fear of fire. It is a long way to the wet season.
It is too soon for the fire season to start--but it has.
