Local fire still active…
… hear that it is stinking up Denver [now THAT’S a switch :-)]
They were using helicopters yesterday to dip buckets into the new lake on the backside of the ridge our house is on (can’t see it from here because of all the trees)
You can see our front porch gutter silhouetted in the foreground. For awhile I did not know what was up, and wondered if this was an air rescue copter ferrying someone to the emergency room [we get those periodically, and since we are on the top of a ridge, we get to kind of experience a lot of airborne traffic first hand]. Then I saw that slight stream of water coming off the bucket…
Yes, they are flying directly above our house. [They are back at it this morning, and are taking various routes, not all of which are directly above the house].
This is why I started taking photos of the copter: the water droplets from the bucket ‘leaking’ water was catching the sunshine and leaving a long trail that looks like smoke. Increased the humidity here a little [good] countered by the smell of diesel fuel exhaust [oh bad]
You really must visit San Diego…nothing here will surprise you as these photos are sore reminders of our last “big one” about 2 years ago! Saw many of these helicopters similarly burdened. Did not, however, see the waterlets mist…I guess my optic systems lacked the microdynamics. (Or was the sun obscured by smoke?). Most of the helicopters we see, aside from fires, are the big noisy ones from Marine Air Station Miramar.
Hi Jim,
We just put in this lake a few years ago, and the other nearby lake is over the eastern ridge and we never had the copters flow over like this before. During the bigger fire in Sept., they used a mosquito-looking copter that used a hose to suck up the water and then later to squirt it onto hot spots.
So the buckets are new to us!
As it flew directly overhead I kept thinking I was going to get a face full [and camera full] of water for my efforts… 🙂
Take care,
-MIke