Skip to main content

The Cloud of Doom Threatens Little Glenwood

Sigh. I missed my calling in life as the writer of newspaper headlines in the yellow press. OK, so Glenwood NM is not really threatened. Still, it was an interesting day with the local forest fire.

You would think that a forest fire would produce hazy, smeared out clouds, as well as weird orange or yellow colors in the sky at the right time of day. That's how it looked during this morning's mountain bike ride, which was chosen to go in the opposite direction from the fire.


On a late afternoon walk into town I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this cloud peeking over the nearest ridge. I had never seen such a solid and serious-looking cloud. Is this how Mt. St. Helens looked when it blew its top?




A dog walker behind the library (where I go to internet) told me the official name of this kind of cloud is 'pyro-cumulus'. Presumably that is condensed water vapor at the top of the forest fire's plume. The particulate matter browns up the bottom of the cloud, since it can't rise as far. Since today was calm, the cloud climbed vertically. High winds are a'comin, so this cloud will soon smear out into a general haze. Fortunately the winds are blowing away from town.



I was glad to hear that the forest service had been building a firebreak at the wilderness boundary, thereby allowing the fire to burn inside the wilderness proper. It's about time they stopped invoking the "Full Employment Act of year 19XY" to give the forest service and its contractors something to do. 


Most of our national forests thickets are ridiculously overgrown. Don't get me started on using millions of taxpayer dollars to protect the McMansions of wealthy retirees who build right next to a forest.

Comments

heyduke50 said…
the absolute best way to fight fire is with fire... we will never learn!
Dramatic photo sequence!
heyduke50, we WILL learn, but knowledge isn't the issue. The bureaucracy that makes the decisions has a vested interest in running the bill up and pretending that every fire is CRISIS. So it needs more headcount and budget.