Where There's Smoke, There's Fire But When it Rains it Doesn't Always Pour

Last night, as we were leaving to go out to dinner, Mike and I took in the view from the top of the hill of my neighborhood.  Being able to see almost the entire front range from that vantage point has always been one of my favorite things about where I live.  But in the last few days, it's just been depressing.

The day the Waldo Canyon fire broke out, the heavy plume of smoke about 50 miles south of us in Colorado Springs, was slightly frightening.  That small plume quickly turned what would normally be a blue Colorado sky to one of ash and smoke and brought a haze to Denver that tinted the light and made everything look like an underdeveloped Polaroid.  But last night, as dark storm clouds began to roll in from the south, making the sky go from black, then orange where the smoke hit sunlight, and then gray...it just looked like one thing.

"My God," I said to Mike.  "It looks like hell."

We scanned the mountains from that spot 1000 feet above Denver until we saw what looked like, to the north, rain clouds.  And then one of those rain clouds suddenly looked like it was going from the ground up.  And we realized that this morning that what we saw was the beginning of the Flagstaff Fire up near Boulder, set in motion by a lightening strike.

It's hard to watch the state you love go up in smoke.  Images of people evacuating and then losing their homes and are all over the internet and greet us on the front page of the paper when we wake up in the morning.  Even though we aren't in immediate danger (a small grass fire broke out just east of us but was quickly put out), we are all coughing, our eyes are burning, and our throats hurt.

Even though officials are saying that something like this was bound to happen at some point, it doesn't help what has been lost.  My parents, who are from Louisiana, have commented that they are now glued to the T.V. just as they have been through every hurricane.  And as I watch the updates...there are some things that I just don't get.  But then again, maybe it's not for me to understand:

• When I watched the news a couple of days ago, one of the things they talked about was how federal help would not come until all private resources had been exhausted.  One gentleman said, "We expect that to happen some time tomorrow morning.  That's when we will get federal assistance with these fires."  Why?  What good did it do to wait?  I'm sure that there was some sort of official procedure in place, but since just about everyone knew at that point that this was about to get really bad...shouldn't we have started calling in what we could right from the get-go?
• Almost 1/2 of the people fighting this fire are contract firefighters.  The reason that they are contract firefighters is because the government can't afford to pay for their benefits.  Things that make you go hmmmmm....
• And then there's Barack Obama's impending visit tomorrow.  I make it a point never to get political in my blogs, but pul-eeze, Mr. Obama.  Don't come tomorrow while they're still struggling to get everything under control.  You should know by now that when you make your appearance, you tend to shut down and redirect a lot of air traffic and traffic in general.  We appreciate the thought.  But it's just not a good time for us to host you.

Some have described the scene in Colorado Springs as similar to a war zone, with military and police, smoke and fire, planes and helicopters circling.  And who are they fighting?  Mother Nature.  Most of us out here are looking at the dead grass around us, sweating in the 100 degree heat, and dreading the sight of clouds because that usually means she's going to strike a match somewhere.  As I write this, she's teasing us.  There are clouds.  A little rain.

But what it mostly amounts to is wind and the dreaded enemy:  Lightening.