Yesterday when at about 5 PM when I was going to the house from my shop I looked up to the North and there was a huge gray mass in the sky. I could only see about 5 miles to the North. It kind of looked like real dense fog. This morning when I went to coffee with the guys, Dan Chapasko told us that the Fern Lake Fire in Rocky Mountain had kicked up again. Dan told us that the county had sent out 500 evacuation orders at 2am this morning in part of Estes Park. Dan lives right on highway 34 the main highway into Estes. He said that patrol cars and fire trucks had been going up 34 to Estes in the middle of the night.When I got home from coffee I turned the TV on and they said that the wind had kicked up to 45 miles an hour during the night. The fire has been burning since October and it has really taken off again. It was so windy today up there that they could not borate the fire. They have new helicopters and Hot Shot crews coming to help the crews already there. My oldest boy and I will be driving our Ts tomorrow to Estes. We are going to try and contact Jim Becker and see if he needs to evacuate any of his Ts.
I'm sorry to read about such bad news. I thought the fires were out. Here's hoping some of the storm from northern California makes it your way and douses the fires for good.
Norm
It has been a BAD weather year. I hope Jim doesn't need to evacuate his T's.
John Aldrich:
I don't know, I have been trying to get ahold of Jim all day, Both his home phone and his cell phone with no luck.
John Aldrich:
Jim is bringing some of his cars down today. He is also taking his 12 down to the Golden Needle in Denver for a new top. I finally got ahold of him this morning. I understand that there are still 600 people evacuated and more have been put on alert to highway 7 for possible evacuation. Jim's home is two blocks from Highway 7. There may be one other person bringing a car down to my place. Its not a T but some other early car.
When my oldest boy and I were up to Estes yesterday the wind was so strong I was worried that it was going to blow the new top off my 16. Thinking back I should have stopped and put the top down.
Weather is strange, it 46 degrees this morning and NOT a breath of wind here south of Berthoud
When I was pulling into my place yesterday afternoon I looked back toward Estes and you could really see a HUGE Plume over Estes. Estes is about 30 straight miles from here. I took a picture of it and if I have time later today I will post it.
Mother Nature is up to some nasty tricks. I do not know much about the global warming theories but I do know it doesn't get as cold in the winter around here as it did when I was a kid.
Thanks to Dave and anyone else who helps save the history of T's!
I thought I would try and post the picture of the smoke above Estes as seen from South of Berthoud.
I hope you can see the plume that starts from the left (just right of the pine trees) and works to the right past the windshield. The white stuff above is clouds. Its strange to me that the smoke was more visible 30 miles away than it was in Estes Valley. You could see smoke in Estes it just was not near as pronounced. This morning when I went into town to coffee the smoke was hard to tell from the clouds, but it sure was noticeable yesterday
The 16 is the T that I was worried about the top in Estes yesterday.