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Field Trip Called on Account of Fire

Just in case you hadn’t heard, bits of Boulder are on fire. That made today at school a little unpleasant. Campus isn’t in any danger, but it was very hazy (I could barely see the Flatirons from the geology building) and everything smelled like smoke. My sinuses are feeling extremely irritated now.

The only mineralogy field trip for the semester was supposed to happen this week as well. I must say, canceling a field trip because of fire sounds a lot more butch than canceling it due to rain. Maybe next time we’ll be able to ratchet it up even more and cancel it on account of alien invasion or giant panda attack.

People weren’t talking about it that much, but the smoke is pretty oppressive, and fire that close to town is a little scary. At least one of the faculty has had his house burn down. He seemed to be taking it a lot better than I ever would, but at least he had his computer with him when everyone got evacuated. So he might have lost a lot of books and other prized possessions, but at least he didn’t lose any research he was working on. Another person I met in the building today mentioned that he’d been evacuated from his house, and he hoped that it didn’t end up burning down because he had all of the literature reprints he needed for an article he’s been working on for 10 years in his office, and if that goes up in flames he’ll pretty much just have to give up on it.

Maybe it’s that both of these gentleman are a lot older than me, or that when you live out where you can see something approaching wilderness from your front door, you have to come to terms with the fact that sometimes nature is one mean mother. But man, they both seemed pretty calm and resigned.

This is one more thing that makes me glad to live in the suburbs, though. Stuff is just stuff, but I also have kitties to worry about.

Also: Phil Plait has pictures over at his blog.

The picture of the sunset freaks me out a little – it makes me think of the Hayman Fire, when at midday in south Denver the sky was orange and ash was raining down. Brrr.

Don’t fuck with mother nature.

2 replies on “Field Trip Called on Account of Fire”

I’ve been hearing a lot about the fires. Can you guys see the smoke from your house? The satellite photos on Phil Plait’s blog made it look like the plume is pretty close to northern Denver.

An acquaintance of mind took this amazing photo that was apparently picked up by the AP yesterday: http://twitpic.com/2m1ghy

Oh, and I thought you might be interested in this brief article about the role social media has played in the disaster: http://www.onlinesocialmedia.net/20100908/boulder-colorado-fire-and-role-of-social-media/ A couple women apparently spent all day Monday (and maybe yesterday as well) transcribing police scanner reports onto Twitter so that people would know what was going on.

Yeah, we actually can see the smoke plume from our house, depending on the wind direction. Monday evening, it basically covered 1/3 of the sky, and it was a bit creepy. I also saw it really well when we were driving up through south Denver, though there it just looked like an extremely long, bizarre cloud.

I saw that picture… man, it’s freaky. I’m hoping they’ll get it contained soon. We’re still wondering if we’ll be able to run our field trip next week, or if the file will be a problem.

Everything in Boulder is hazy and smells like smoke. I’ve got a nasty, acrid taste in the back of my throat that I can’t get rid of, and I think it’s just from inhaling all of the smoke constantly. My sinuses sure aren’t appreciating it.

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