November 11, 2006

• This entry is x-posted from another blog, with names changed to place names in World of Warcraft to keep this entry consistent with all my others, as I almost never use real names.

  The smell of woodsmoke woke me up this morning. The light in the room was dim and the from little bit of the day that I could see from between the edge of the shade and the wall, I decided it was foggy. The smell was pleasant and not too strong, so I went back to sleep. I woke up a little while later and the smell was much stronger. There was some sun coming through the glassblock window of the bathroom at this point, but it still seemed dimmer than normal. It was about 8:10, later than Bean usually sleeps. At this point the smoke smell was strong enough that I was worried something in my house was on fire--even though the smell was still really woody and not the harsh chemical smell of burning synthetics. I went down tothe kitchen and realized everything was OK, so I went out the front door. It appeared kind of smoky out and there was a strong odor. I looked towards the end of the road and the entire gully appeared full of smoke. I figured there was a brush fire nearby.

  I was standing out in my nightgown, and it actually wasn't too cold. It felt dry and the grass was cool, but not in the least bit damp. It was breezy and the sky was golden in places, and covered with clouds in others. I came back in and told the husband that it wasn't our house that was burning, but that there was a nearby brush fire. We turned on the news to see where it was. These fires can be deceiving and seem closer than they really are. One year it was smoky with the smell of smoke in the air from fires in Oregon (OK, this is a real name, I admit it). Another time there was a big fire a good 50 miles away that I was convinced was just a few miles. So we turned on the news and a little blurb was running across one of the tv programs. It said the third fire was burning in Elwynn Forest, about 13 acres. That explained it. Elwynn Forest is about 18 miles away by car (shorter as the crow flies), and this explained the smoke I was smelling, so I thought. There was another fire in the Alterac Valley area, mostly contained, also small. I asked the husband if he wasn't glad we weren't living in Elwynn after all. The news captions started over again and then we found out that the biggest fire, 150 acres at that point in time, was right up the street. No homes were threatened, so I figured it was burning in the open area near a big planned community. I went back outside again and it was colder and the smoke had been blown out, but I could see the burning area in the open field where I walk sometimes.

  Apparently the fire has gotten up to 300 acres, but it has been overcast for much of the day and rain started pouring down about half an hour ago. It switched to a kind of wet snow and now it seems to have stopped, but I don't know if the fire is contained. It was proving hard when the winds were blowing, but they were expecting the rain to come and help things. Right now it is a kind of bright grayish kind of overcast that I associate with November (or maybe April rainstorms), and a light dusting of snow is visible on the lower elevation mountain range east of us.

  • 6:17 pm
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