Sawmill Fire Collection

This is when the fire started. Taken from the east side of our house. The fire at this point is on the south side of Sawmill Canyon, pretty far back in the canyon on or just outside of the impact range.

It didn't take long that afternoon to become this and it jumped to the north side of Sawmill and was headed north and west down the canyon. This is from our porch.

My friend whose sons are fire fighters said that when the smoke looks like this and creates clouds is when the fire is so hot it "creates its own weather" which we heard so much about during the Arapahoe fire and its ever changing wind patterns.

My dad's fire truck, Glendo Unit 15. Here we are waiting at Regan draw with is one draw north of Sawmill, near the Stone House. Soon after this my dad got his dozer and began building fire line which is what he did for about 2 days straight.

Third night of the fire, now it extends from Sawmill to Regan draw. The blue light is my parent's yard light. My parents have put computers and family photos in their cars, although we were never given an official evacuation notice.  There is still a river between those flames and their house.

This is looking up the North Cassa Road on Wednesday afternoon.

Frey's bridge on Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday evening.

Pictures Eric took of fire on Thursday. He spent the day with the fire truck.

The fireline and various trucks. Notice how horribly dry it is. Hardly a blade of grass in sight. It is July, not October.

Hot shot gang. Also a good picture of the fireline.

Up Regan draw

Lacy and Rowdy built this sign.

Taken from our big River pump.

From the bridge looking up river either Wednesday or Thursday. This is burn out smoke I believe. But the burnouts worked. The color in this picture is not from instagram - but is the real thing.

Unit 15 and Eric. There were fire trucks from all over. Torrington, Guernsey, Berthoud Colorado, Riverton, Worland, Cody, South Dakota, four hot shot teams from Colorado, and this was just what I saw while delivering chicken legs and watermelon.

 I didn't get very good pictures of the air support. But there were at least two helicopters with buckets.

And this big helicopter with a suction tube. It was amazing to watch. They would fill from the river. Also C-130's dropping the red fire retardant. Also there were numerous spotter planes flying about the whole time.

So when all was said and done and thanks to fireman and good wind directions this fire stayed on the east side of the river. It significantly damaged our neighbors property. No structures were lost, but almost 15,000 acres. There is a good map here.  http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3024/
As I speak Eric and dad are out again at another fire nearby this one and there are two other fires burning in our county, not to mention Arapahoe which has burned almost 100,000 acres and some of our friends have lost their home in that fire, not to mention their pasture. It is incredibly dry and we aren't even to August yet. I'm afraid if crickets rub their knees it will start a fire at this point. I hope this is the last of the fire pictures I have to post.