Friday, June 22, 2012

Nature

We don't have earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, or tornadoes in New Mexico (actually the do get a few tornadoes in the eastern plains to be accurate).  But generally it is pretty benign environmentally...except for the drought and drought induced forest and wild fires.  Of course they've been pretty big news this year even getting mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. 

I was on my way back home from Santa Fe on Wednesday and as soon as I got on I-25 heading south I saw this big smoke plume and said to myself "this isn't good".  I kept driving (it's 60 miles between Santa Fe and Albuquerque) and watching get bigger and wondering just where it was, hoping it wasn't up in the Sandias where I hike.

I took this shot about 30 miles from town

And this one about 15 miles out

And finally this one just 5 miles away

It was a fire in the bosque (the area along the Rio Grande river) just north of town and it was on both sides of the river.  Fortune was on our side as it was just north of a major suburb and south of one of the pueblos but no houses or lives were lost and they had it under control by sunrise.

The next day the wind was hard out of the East.  Sometimes when that happens we have these clouds boiling over the mountains so you can hardly see the mountains themselves.


Answer To Our Quiz!

The inside of my pocket.  Forgot to lock the phone keyboard :(

Winner of the quiz was Erika Stiengloss of Pierre North Dakota.  She's signing up her no good, two timing boy friend Fred up for the de-I Sandia Outfitters special "Wildlife of the Sandias" tour.  Hope you enjoy carnivores Fred :)


3 comments:

Pulisha said...

It's amazing that there was so little damage from that fire. We have the opposite problem here :)

alexis said...

were the mountains closed still?

Jules said...

ahhh the inside of your pocket!

The mountains look kind of cool with all the clouds covering them. Hm...not sure if I would rather take on forest fires or the possibility of tornadoes...