Organ Mountains on Fire

[Don Jones]

We had a fire in the Organ mountains over the weekend. It never really threatened any houses, although they were pretty worried about it at one point. It finally burned over the top and into the White Sands Missle Range before they got it under control. I guess when it hit the missle base they were worried about firefighters and un-exploded ordinance(probably for good reason). My house sat right under the flight path for the helicopters flying water drops so I got to watch them all weekend.
Man it's dry around here. I don't remember the last rain we had. Here is a picture that was sent to me in an e-mail. Pretty impressive shot. Since we have had no lightning, they figure it was man made and are investigating.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

wow that is quite the shot, Don. We are in extreme fire hazard conditions too, had another 3 last weekend. I am checking tfrs as close to dep. as possible now, saw a range fire half-way to Midland yesterday now that I think of it - people were asking for deviations around the smoke cloud, I topped it at 9K but the cabin filled with the smell of smoke.

 

[Don Jones]

wow that is quite the shot, Don. We are in extreme fire hazard conditions too, had another 3 last weekend. I am checking tfrs as close to dep. as possible now, saw a range fire half-way to Midland yesterday now that I think of it - people were asking for deviations around the smoke cloud, I topped it at 9K but the cabin filled with the smell of smoke.

Wish they could send some of the Iowa water down here. We didn't have to worry about a TFR for this one, it was all inside the Restricted airspace. I have some pictures of the smoke cloud I will post that I took from our driveway. Notice the cloud that formed at the top of the smoke column. Condensation nuclei?