Fire
A large section of the hillside just outside Boulder City is on fire. The fire started this afternoon, and the severe winds we've been having caused it to spread quickly. As of earlier this evening, over 1,000 acres had burned. You can smell smoke pretty much everywhere, and when we went to take a look, we could see how frighteningly quickly it was spreading towards town.
Fortunately from the information we have at the moment, the continued spread is Westward (into the mountains) rather than South (towards Boulder City). At this point unless something goes Very Unexpectedly Wrong, we are unlikely to be evacuated or otherwise directly effected. One of the locations to which people are being evacuated is Centennial Middle School (where I attended 6th Grade) just up the hill from this house.
There were several fires, at least one or two of which have been 100% contained. The latest update we have on the main fire, however, is that it is "zero percent contained" due to the inconsistent nature of the fire (obviously related to the wind situation) and "fingers of fire" spreading away from the central areas. Which is obviously not comforting. However, on the more comforting front, we have been told that "the fire’s Incident Commander is hopeful that [the] firefighters can hold their position throughout the evening." Also somewhat more comforting is that the wind seems to have dropped (apparently to something around 25 MPH), whereas earlier it was averaging 60-65 MPH, with gusts up to 80 MPH.
Anyhow, we'll be going to bed soon, and as long as we don't wake up to the "you must evacuate your home, leave within the next 10 minutes" phone call, all's well.
Fortunately from the information we have at the moment, the continued spread is Westward (into the mountains) rather than South (towards Boulder City). At this point unless something goes Very Unexpectedly Wrong, we are unlikely to be evacuated or otherwise directly effected. One of the locations to which people are being evacuated is Centennial Middle School (where I attended 6th Grade) just up the hill from this house.
There were several fires, at least one or two of which have been 100% contained. The latest update we have on the main fire, however, is that it is "zero percent contained" due to the inconsistent nature of the fire (obviously related to the wind situation) and "fingers of fire" spreading away from the central areas. Which is obviously not comforting. However, on the more comforting front, we have been told that "the fire’s Incident Commander is hopeful that [the] firefighters can hold their position throughout the evening." Also somewhat more comforting is that the wind seems to have dropped (apparently to something around 25 MPH), whereas earlier it was averaging 60-65 MPH, with gusts up to 80 MPH.
Anyhow, we'll be going to bed soon, and as long as we don't wake up to the "you must evacuate your home, leave within the next 10 minutes" phone call, all's well.