Fire On The Mountain

Good Morning Gentle Readers.

The distant chop of rotor blades conjures up images of war, war movies, or military training exercises. Before they closed down LTA, every Tuesday night the Huey's snaked through Tenaja like refugees from Apocalypse Now, spilling out of the mountains, then flying north in close formation over Lake Elsinore. Way off at the edge of the dark, the distant pattern of running lights set up the expectation of alien space craft. Or maybe the Millennium Falcon.   

These days that sound usually means a high-tech bucket brigade. Helicopters dunk enormous pails like this one into the lake, while thirsty Skycranes literally suck drinking water out of Lake Mathews until the belly is full.

So last night was a bit iffy. Didn't stop us from watching Idol but we were definitely paying attention to the west. Got dang if it never used to be this way, but seems like these days we can’t go two days of gorgeous weather without a fire.

Taken from the deck off our master bedroom about 8:40 Tuesday night. That’s Monument Peak and the fire is about 1.5 miles away with a freshening wind blowing this direction. By midnight the flames and the wind had died away and moved south west.

The fire was sparked by an off highway dirt bike trespassing on private property. No surprise there, every flatlander with an OHV thinks it's his God Given Constitutional right to ride through these hills. Most of them can't read big words neither. Words like No Trespassing.

As Ever,

TWC