Smoky Weekend

Normally you can see mountains from here.

It kind of feels like most of western North Carolina and large parts of the upstate of South Carolina are burning.  The forest fires aren’t under control and are still spreading.  We’re in a major drought, and it has been really windy; so basically perfect conditions for the fires to spread.

We have a 50 percent chance of rain today, and that’s it for rain for us in the forecast.  A few people locally have said they’ve had a sprinkling of rain, but no one is reporting much rain.  It hasn’t rained at our house yet.  It’s early though, so hopefully the rain will come later in the day.

The closest fires to us are about 25 to 30 minutes away, and there’s a lot of smoke all over.  A small part of the county we live in is under a mandatory evacuation order.  I’ll admit I’ve been in a state of near panic all weekend.  Nick assures me that the fires are unlikely to reach us.  He says we’re basically in a valley below the mountains that are burning.  We’re getting a lot of smoke, but shouldn’t get fire.  He says that fires don’t burn as efficiently going downhill, and that they’re much easier to control and put out if they’re moving downhill.

It looks foggy outside, but the weather folks assure us it’s smoke, not fog. It even looked foggy in the middle of the afternoon yesterday from the smoke.  Everything smells like smoke.  The smoke smell is definitely stronger outside, but even inside it smells like smoke.

The pictures are taken from our backyard, just to give you an idea of the smoke.  It has been like that since yesterday.  You can normally see mountains in the distance.

I haven’t heard anything about when the fires are expected to be under control.  It seems that a lot depends on whether or not we get rain, and what the wind does.

Here’s hoping for lots of rain today!