Climate Change? Nahhh ...

I didn't even mention the hickory and oak trees. I have a sack full of nuts.

 

That's on a tee for someone other than me.

 

Breaking from the East Troublesome fire in upland Colorado: Grand Lake Fire Department is being told not to save any building that’s already on fire. No reinforcements available until 10 a.m. MT.

 

Terrible night. Grand Lake is an awesome, quirky little town. I’ve had a lot of great times there since moving to Colorado 12 years ago.

Sadly the area is surrounded by trees killed by the mountain pine beetle epidemic 10-12 years ago. One of my closest friends has a cabin just outside town and we’d stand in the deck, look out at endless views of grey dead trees and speculate about this very scenario.

I *think* the fire is pushing north of his property at the moment but they’ll be lucky to get out of this with that house intact. Really terrible night.

 

I’ve been lucky enough to vacation at the C Lazy U guest ranch near Granby. Best vacations ever. I know they’ve evacuated all the people and the remuda this week. I think the fires are passing north of there.

 

That is heart wrenching

 

Jesus. My heart goes out to everyone involved. Bless the firemen. I've worked with a bunch of those crazy bastards and have mad respect for what they do and endure.

God help them all.

 

East Troublesome blew up massively yesterday, obviously:



And now it could get even worse.



Here’s that on a map:

 

It grew 100,000 acres in the last ~12 hours. And they're expecting similar conditions today.

At least it looks like the heart of the town was spared but who knows today. That area east and north of the town, though, is nothing but dead trees waiting to get torched. At least not a lot of houses.