Birds and Nature

While driving up to Pueblo Mtn Park over the week-end I spotted this small wildfire in the forest in the Beulah area. I quickly went to a residence near where I could see the fire to have them call it in as I correctly figured they would have be able to describe better than I where it was located in those mountains. I was told they had lightening the night before so it seems likely that it had been smoldering and finally flared up with the winds. It looks very small, possibly only one tree. In the past when I have reported such a small fire the firefighters choose to just watch it as these small ones often burn themselves out they told me. However since this is not far from the town of Beulah, where many have done no mitigation around their homes, they may have made an effort to put it out just in case. In fact, the home at which I stopped to have them call the fire in had a number of full grown ponderosa pines close to it--I took advantage of this opportunity to remind the gent...

The eastern edge of the 8 Mile Fire is on steep mountain areas a few miles from several homes that were built in the forest-urban interface-the area that firefighters call the 'stupid zone' because it is at risk from the natural cycle of wildfires that has occurred long before man arrive. As useful as this fire retardant is in keeping the fire from spreading across where it has been dropped, it is an environmental pollutant that has killed fish and other species. And article about the debate over even the effectiveness of this flame retardant 'slurry' adds: "These compounds are also used in agricultural fertilizers. That, according to several researchers, is precisely the problem: When dumped into a wilderness area, these fertilizers stimulate the growth of certain weedy, fast-growing plants that outcompete slower-growing plant species, some of which are rare or endangered. Additionally, if these compounds find their way into a stream or lake, the fer...

A serious wildfire broke out around 1 pm this afternoon on the south side of the Royal Gorge across from the Royal Gorge Bridge. It continued working all afternoon and evening with one section moving northeast towards Canon City. I took these photos tonight of the hillside on the west side of the hogbacks. Though there are clearly hundreds of trees burning all over that hillside (it is adjacent to H50 paralleling the hogbacks and where H50 turns west and to the south of where goes up 8 mile hill) it must have been a much worse conflagration earlier as I saw a slurry bomber dump fire retardant on this hill about an 2 hours before I took these photos. In the photo on the left you can see a tree torching. Lights on the bottom are residences, etc in Canon City on the east side of the hogbacks (the dark hill between the city lights and the burning hillside). SeEtta

I found this adult Swainson's Hawk south of Florence, CO and still within Fremont County tonight. They are uncommon in my county though usually found in the small amount of remaining grasslands either south or east of Florence. I found it not long after I spotted a wildfire that had just begun in the Wet Mountains just west of this area. My long telephoto lens combo on my dslr camera came in handy as I was able to show a photo of the wildfire location to the fire fighters (by the time they arrived the smoke had gone down and it is difficult to point out a location on top of distant mountains). The wildfire was likely started by lightening as there were thunder storms all around and the fire fighters thought the rain may put out the fire. SeEtta

I wasn't sure as I filmed this if one of the 2 planes I saw was a slurry bomber. It was and it drops the reddish colored fire retardant on the trees at the edge of the fire. SeEtta

In this clip the extensiveness of this wildfire is shown and I comment on it about how much more fire was there that I hadn't seen until now. SeEtta

I took the top pic from a short ways west of Texas Creek (this turns out to be just the north section of the fire)and the Duckett Fire sure gives an impressive show as it rises in a tall and dark column into the sky. I took the middle pic from about 5 miles away, and at a higher elevation than the fires, providing some perspective on the overall breadth of the fire--I was really surprised to see just how much more extensive the fire was than what I had seen near Texas Creek and other locations before getting above it.  Even as large as it looks in this view, the south section (shown below) is to the left of the photo so not pictured here. And I focused in on the south section of the fire, the furthest distance from me. The fire had blown up and produced this very large plume-wow.  SeEtta

Another short clip of the Duckett fire that I took yesterday from a little closer, maybe 7-8 miles away (tho I say 10 or more miles away on the video clip, distance is deceptive and when I measure it on google maps it is a closer than I thought). SeEtta

Another short video clip of the Duckett Fire, this time a little closer-8-10 miles away. SeEtta

I took this clip from the Texas Creek area which is about 12 miles away from the north part of the Duckett Fire and the rising column of smoke seen here. SeEtta

The top pic shows the slurry drop of fire retardant which is colored bright reddish. The bottom pic shows the bomber (on the left) flying off and the plane that is the in-air control towards the top of the pic as the slurry continues falling to the trees. SeEtta