June 24, 2011. Taken from outside of town.
June 25, 2011. Taken at the edge of town.
The above two pictures were taken of a fire in a national forest by Santa Fe, across the valley from us. It’s downwind so we haven’t been affected by it. But this area is so dry they are closing some of national forests around here:
And as I was starting to write this post earlier today I took this pictures from our porch of a new fire to the west of us:
As I was downloading the picture from the camera bikehikebabe phoned to say the main highway in the mountains was closed because of the fire. Andy was up on the land, so I phoned my daughter to let her know what was happening. As we were talking Andy came in with pictures and bad news–the pictures were of our land burning. For more pictures click here.
At the moment we’re being told evacuations are voluntary, but if we leave because the smoke gets too bad make sure we’re prepared to be gone for a while. We’re not too worried. The fire is only 12 miles away as I write, but a lot of the trees that were between us and the fire burned in the year 2000. We did evacuate then.
Who says life in the sticks is dull?
Update June 27: We’re being evacuated again. Will let you know.
Hope the fires pass you by.
June 25, 3001?
Scary stuff. Stay safe.
Evan and Mike,
Thank you. We’re not worried about down here. The question is how much devastation is there on our land. Andy has been going up almost every day for years and loves it. If it’s mostly burned to a crisp we have a lot of thinking to do. Would/will we move elsewhere? If so where? We won’t know for days/weeks. With the hot dry weather and winds it might be quite a while before the fire is out enough to go up there. Anyway, life is not dull!
oh no jean! i think i would rather have our tornados. i meet with the adjuster thurs for a new roof.
wildfire out of control has a special sorrow and fear in my heart. first the little wildlife animals… hard enuf to survive the heat and drought without the pain of burning up… and the beloved trees. oh the trees. you’ve been thru this before, so you know how to stay safe, so i won’t even say it. just know that heartfelt thoughts are with you guys.
love,
tammy j
Hi, I stopped by to let you all know my Mom, and I am hoping bikehikebabe, are evacuating. I see that my Mom beat me too it (efficient as she is). Thanks for your caring thoughts; she has her computer and will update soon, I am sure. Even Montana Tornado is somber tonight…we all worry about grandma and grandpa.
Take care, Kaitlin
Oh my god, Jean. Just read your update. What does it mean in practical terms “being evacuated”? Do you have that which is most precious, say, photographs, small personal momentos, with you? Frightening when fire or water unleashed. Your equanimity will see you through, Jean. Still.
Affectionately,
Ursula
I send you my best wishes for a safe seeing off of this phenomenon. I hope that it rains soon and puts out the fires. Do keep in touch.
Looks like everything is closed in this state. They have red tape across all the entrances to the walking trails along the Rio Grande.
well at least according to Looney – the state are making sure that people do not inadvertently set more forest alight.
but on the other hand I know that Summer is probably a great time to be hiking/tramping and rambling about so that makes it more difficult
here in NZ, big landtracts of forest go ‘up’ each year through semi-controlled burning which somehow gets out of hand.
hope that you are not suffering too much from the smoke and that you take a bit of time to decide on your land situation i.e. don’t make an instant decision – think on it 🙂
We sat on our balcony last night (July 4th) & the fires (counted 36 of ’em) were more spectacular than the fireworks that weren’t allowed. The horizon was aglow with bellowing orange cloud-like formations.
I drove from Albuquerque to Taos and back over the weekend. There seemed to be a string of fires from south of Santa Fe to fairly far north. Hope it all clears up soon.
Looney, next time take a left, come up the mountain & visit me in Los Alamos.
BHB, I do have a plan to get back to Los Alamos sometime and say hi to you and Jean. There are some neat places to explore up thee!
I don’t like it when people don’t “perform” to type. It’s unsettling. Why are you so quiet, Jean? I imagined you being evacuated to a place of comfort and style (a hotel) with all mod inconveniences (like the internet) installed. Let us know how you are. Even if down in the mouth. It happens.
As ever,
Ursula
But Jean is never down in the mouth. I know it’s disgusting. 😉
tammy,
I was surprised about the evacuation because the last fire gave us a nice firebreak down here in Los Alamos, I thought. Andy was up in the mountains at the time so I was very happy when he walked in the door last Sunday. I don’t know how many animals survived, but most of the trees are toast. Miles and miles of them.
We’re starting to deal with the insurance people about the destruction on our place, but we still can’t go up there because the fire hasn’t been contained yet. If we hadn’t still been traveling Tuesday we could have been escorted in. One of our neighbors took a couple of pictures of our burned house from a distance.
Ursula,
We took some financial papers and a hard drive containing all of our scanned pictures. Then we packed for a week long trip. The last time we evacuated we went to Montana to take Andy’s mother out for her 91st birthday. This time we spent the first night in Albuquerque then drove to California to visit my sister and family. Packing was fairly easy because we recently got back from visiting Kaitlin and Torben so knew exactly what we needed. And we had a couple of hours to do it because we knew we were in no real danger.
Rummuser,
Thank you!
Looney,
Yes, as the saying goes, the state is/was a tinderbox waiting for a match. In our case a tree blew over on a power line to set things off. Latest report is 136,955 acres were burned. It’s now 40% contained.
Cathy,
Andy and I are exploring options now. Do we want to rebuild up there or move or what? We’re gathering information, which is one reason I haven’t written sooner. Our old pattern was Andy would go up to the land every day and I had my own schedule down here. Now he can’t go up there until the fire is contained so things will be a bit unsettled for quite a while.
bikehikebabe,
Yes, your view of the fire is a lot better than ours. I enjoyed visiting you and your family last night.
Looney,
I still love Los Alamos, but some of the places aren’t quite as neat as they were before! It would be neat if you could come up and say hi.
Ursula,
Yes, we stayed in motels but spent 5 days traveling. Usually I plan trips ahead of time, this time I did it on the go. My internet activity was focused on getting motels and calculating routes. Then we spent about 2 1/2 days visiting with my sister and other family members, and I wanted to focus on them since the last time we were there was in 2004. I wanted to write more here, but decided it was best to wait until I got back.
bikehikebabe,
Years ago one of my New Year’s resolutions was to become more outrageous. Disgusting works for me too. 🙂
Anyway, thank you all for writing. I’ve been thinking of you even though I had to put off responding. It’s good to be back, even though it’s not to my old routine.
I’m a bit confused on where you are but guess you are safe as such…
So the confusion is: do you live in one place and own land/house nearby like a summer crib/bach (translation probably holiday home)?
Jean, I hope you are able to get things sorted out smoothly. Sounds like you lost some property and some things that were undoubtedly special to you.
Cathy,
We had 80 acres and a half-finished house up there. We did a lot as a family there when Kaitlin was growing up. I wrote about it in Our Garden in the Woods. We eventually decided to continue living in our apartment down here Los Alamos instead of moving up there, but Andy was going up there almost every day and nurturing some fruit trees, plowing the road in winter, etc. The big question now is what do we do now to recreate that neat lifestyle we both had.
Looney,
Thanks. I’ve been as psychologically prepared as one can be for one of us to have health problems in the future. So my main reaction is being glad that he got out safely. I’m also grateful that we work so well together and that we’re in close contact with Kaitlin. She was willing to drop everything and come right out if we needed her. As it is she’ll probably come in early August. Presumably the fire will be out by then and we can go up there.
good grief! i’ve been checking every day to see if there’s new info… but always stopped at seeing the title of the post “up in smoke” had not changed… thinking no new info on how you are.
today for some reason, i went to comments and there you are!
safe, a little scorched, but ever calm and cheerful as the good cheerful monk that you are! also glad to hear from BHB… trying to picture the world where you guys live.
every area has its charm and its dangers.
ours is tornados, hail storms, high straight wind and opressive heat in the spring/summer and destructive ice storms in the winter! gotta love it!
oh… to the charm part… well…. i guess it would have to be the friendly, pioneer spirit of the okies. most of their descendants survived the dust bowl… so guess it’s in their dna. lol. still… i remember and long for the upper east coast where we had lovely fluffy snow in winter, the only-occasional hurricane, trees tall as some skyscrapers, the chance to eat a lovely breakfast on a shaded cool terrace in the summer, without the eggs blowing off your plate.
as mary englebreit says… bloom where you’re planted.
i’m trying mary! god only knows how i’m trying!!!! 🙂
love and hugs to all of you,
tammy j
ours “are” tammy. you’re speaking to wives of physicists and professors! oh my.
Tammy,
I gotta love the way you say it. “…ours are tornados, hail storms, high straight wind and opressive heat in the spring/summer and destructive ice storms in the winter! gotta love it!”
“ours are”… tammy you’re speaking to wives of physicists and professors! oh my.”
As for being the wives of physicists. Makes no difference. We still buy it, cook it, wash it (the dishes), sweep it, all the rest, just like you.
tammy,
Thanks so much for writing! I love your description of Oklahoma and I didn’t even notice the typo. I read for content and mostly miss typos.
I’m sorry I haven’t written more, but traveling took our full attention, and it always takes a lot out of me, so it took me a day or two to summon up some energy. That plus the insurance people want us to get started on figuring out what we want to claim even though we still can’t get up to the land. It certainly is a new adventure.
Thanks Kaitlin
Kaitlin,
Thank you for your comment! I’m afraid it got stuck in the “pending” pile and I just found it now. If you ever comment again this site should know you. (It asks for permission for the first comment to prevent spam.)
And thank you, Evan, for responding to her comment.
I was wondering about that. Thought maybe you were having to skedaddle all over again. Glad the explanation is more mundane. 🙂
Mike,
We too are glad we don’t have to skedaddle again. Once every 10 years or so is enough. 😀