10-29-2019
For Cooper Landing, Alaska, the fire is getting pretty close. They have put the residents in an evacuation set state. That means be prepared to get in your vehicles and go. Layman's words-"it ain't looking good folks". According to the Alaska Wildland Fire Information web site the Fire Size is 161,921 acres.
This link from InciWeb - Incident Information System has a nice zoom-able map and the fire history. Today's posting of Basic Information is Current as of 8/29/2019, 7:36:49 PM (Alaska time of course). The fire started on June 2nd, they are expecting containment around September 15th. There are 740 people working the fire. A lot of smoke still in the air, and on our drive by of the airport in Kenai there were several Fire fighting planes. Sorry I did not get a picture of the planes. "Use aviation resources to check fire spread in critical areas throughout the fire when possible. Smoke continues to limit use of aviation resources". The smoke is pretty thick.
This is the view down the road close to our house, the smoke was pretty thick. these pictures were taken at noon on the 28th. I had to wear a mask and my wife did the driving. It was not a pleasant Wednesday Drive.
Looking back was not any better.
Onward we traveled: Left or right it did not matter, smoke and construction both directions.
So on we drove, sometimes you have things that need to get done, especially as seasons wind down. Winter is getting here, fall only last a little bit each year, we may not be able to get any Mountain fall shots we will miss that, I think we have already missed the fis congregating in the creek running out of Tern Lake. Oh well always something to take a picture of even if it is just some smokey road shots.
if you search "Alaska Swan Lake Fire Video" you will get some nice videos, I liked the one driving down the road with flames arcing over it, pretty cool, cool but dangerous.
All photo's were taken by me riding as the passenger. No bugs were intentionally killed, they just wanted to taste the windshield.
Breathe easy and relax, the Hard forks for now are done. The smoke and mirrors were not intended to have any meaning at all other than it was smoke and it was a mirror.
