Fires in Colorado

jsnapp

jsnapp

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Jan 9, 2012
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Westminster, CO
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BJC-Cherokee
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KBJC
The fires in Colorado north of Denver are getting pretty bad. This fire only started on Saturday. This is a picture that I took of the fire on Sunday afternoon at about 3:00 from 12,500' about 4 miles from the fire.
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Great pic...

I am afraid that we are in for a rough fire season.
 
Looks like what we had in NM last year. It really sucked. I flew my first approach in heavy smoke.

Sadly, I'd have to agree, looks like a really bad fire season.
 
One of our pilots is in Colorado working on these fires. We dealt with them last year but as bad as ours were, they can't compare to the ones going on this year in the West. And flatland fires are far different than mountain fires. Good luck to all working on and living around those areas.
 
Just W/NW of Fort Collins. Flames were visible Saturday night from town. We have ash all over every thing outside, even a screen porch. Reported over 20,000 acres. Winds are better today. Maybe they'll make some progress today. First time I've seen Canadian airtankers.

Be careful flying near fires. There are 8 fixed wind and 7 helos plus a lead plane and air attack. And add all the news helos. TFR is in place but relatively small.
 
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Much bigger than the last time I looked at a map showing the areas burned.

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Poudre Canyon is at the north edge of the fire.
 
yes. This is the High Park fire. this morning they were reporting it has now burned 36000 acres and is 0% contained. They a very worried about it around here. We were flying 1000' above the TFR. they expanded the TFR today. The air tankers fly right over my house when they take off. quite a sight.
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here we're some other photos.
 
We got some of that smoke yesterday, flying home from Gaston's. From about Durant OK, south to the DFW metroplex, there was reduced vis due to smoke, as per the Area Forecast's mention of FU. Now we know from whence it came.
 
I know it seems odd that we could get all that hail and rain and then have a big fire but the two places are at least 50 miles away from each other.
 
cbmontgo said:
...I am afraid that we are in for a rough fire season.
Click to expand...

I started saying this 4-5 years ago when the pine beetle infestation really took off. With all the dead trees standing and down, bureaucratic red-tape driven by tree-hugging activism hampering every possible move, I predicted we're set up for the perfect storm of a fire season one of these summers where we can pretty much kiss most of our National Forests good-bye. I had just hoped it's without loss of life. Sadly, that's already too late with the deaths in the Lower North Fork fire, and the tanker crew lost recently.
 
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