Fire Update

The fire is now--according to which source you use--between 55,000 and 65,000 acres. Lucky for us, the winds have been blowing from the southwest and we haven't had much smoke or even seen much of the smoke plume, though the helicopter activity to and from the airport has been incessant for the past couple days as firefighters and supplies are shuttled back and forth.

The map above is a screenshot off the OASIS console at work showing the Kenai Peninsula. The Anchorage area is off the screen to the top, Kodiak Island and the Gulf of Alaska to the south. The Homer Airport is marked by the yellow star and Bluff Point (where we live) is the blue star. The big red box is the area surrounding the fire that is off-limits to aircraft not involved in the fire-fighting activity. There is only a narrow corridor between the restricted airspace and the mountains to the east and a buffer zone on the west side along the coast for aircraft flying north to the Anchorage area. (All the white dots are airports of some caliber or another)

I drove up to Diamond Ridge on my way home from work last night. The hills to the north were obscured by a combination of clouds and smoke. Out of curiousity I decided to drive a little north and see what I could see.

I took the Sterling Highway a couple miles north to the North Fork Road (the south end of the North Fork Road, to get technical.) I took the North Fork's meandering loop north up into the higher terrain, hoping to get a better view of what lay to the north. The hills are steep--even the Crown Victoria balked at some stretches--but once I reached the alpine meadows, the view was obstructed by rain clouds and smoke. The whole valley of the Anchor River was filled with smoke. Descending into it was like descending into darkness. Rain began before I reached the level ground on the north side of the hills. Yet despite the heavy rain, the smoke was thick, restricting visibility to a half-mile or so. It cloaked Anchor Point and crept sout along the highway. It wasn't until I approached Black Water Bend that the visibility improved and I broke out into the light again.