{"id":6959,"date":"2013-11-07T10:06:49","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T15:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=6959"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"life-mountains-wildfires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/life-mountains-wildfires\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in the Mountains: Wildfires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published Nov. 7, 2013 by Grit Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s raining here today. That\u2019s a very good thing. Not only do we need the moisture, but it does wonders for the air quality in our neighborhood right now.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A wildfire\u00a0started early yesterday on Stone Mountain: just over a mile from where I sit. \u00a0The smoke in the air was noticeable here by mid-morning and got steadily worse. \u00a0By early afternoon an easterly wind moved in and blew the smoke the other side of Piney Mountain down through Bat Harbor. \u00a0When the wind died down yesterday evening, the smoke moved back in, in force. \u00a0It was nasty.<\/p>\n

The photo is a shot of the fire taken Wednesday at dusk from the Lowe\u2019s parking lot in Newport \u2013 probably about 8 miles away as the crow flies. \u00a0Unless it\u2019s a drunken crow; then that would be hard to judge. \u00a0It shows the smoke plume that is drifting along Piney Mountain: our home place.<\/p>\n

We sealed our house windows yesterday to keep the smoke out. \u00a0The gentle drizzly rain started around 4 a.m. and has dropped 4\/10th inch so far \u2013 at 8 a.m. \u2013 which has done wonders toward dragging the smoke particles out of the air and making it far more breathable.\u00a0 It should help some in the firefighting efforts as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We are in no danger from this fire except for the annoyance of the smoke. \u00a0The biggest danger presented \u2013 other than to a few homes in that area \u2013 is to a spot at the crest of Stone Mountain called\u00a0Hall\u2019s Top<\/a>, which is the location of a major communications antenna array. \u00a0 If this gets taken out by the fire, it would put a major crimp in wireless communications \u2013\u00a0cell phones, internet, business and emergency vehicle radios, etc. \u2013 in this county.<\/p>\n

In the photo at the top of the page Hall’s Top is the high point just to the right of the fire.\u00a0 Since the winds are blowing the fire away from Hall’s Top, I expect it too will be OK.<\/p>\n

Stone Mountain sits at 90 degrees just off the southern end of Piney Mountain. They are separated by a creek and a paved roadway.\u00a0 Just to the east of Stone Mountain is Hogback Mountain: it burned last year.\u00a0 Just north and east of Piney Mountain is Rocky Top (yes: THAT Rocky Top), which burned a few years ago.\u00a0 In between those times was a fire along the Foothills Parkway, which is more distant but visible from our front porch.<\/p>\n

Wildfires are always a concern here because battling fires on the steep, heavily wooded, often unimproved (meaning few, if any, roads) faces of these mountains is a difficult task even for the experienced personnel of the Forestry Department.\u00a0 It is not at all like battling a fire in a city or even in a rural area of the flat-lands.\u00a0 Equipment cannot be driven in, the only water available would be any streams or creeks (often too small to be of any real use), and there is no quick way to get injured men out of a fire area.\u00a0 Even bringing in a bulldozer to create a fire break can be hazardous because of the danger of rolling it over on the steep, soft terrain.\u00a0 So most mountain firefighting is done on foot with chainsaws and shovels by men and women who must climb through the undergrowth up the steep slopes to the fire from the nearest road or pathway.<\/p>\n

As residents of (or visitors to) these mountains, we need to be very careful with open fires, especially in the fall when the leaves are dry and highly flammable.\u00a0 Being caught in the middle of a wildfire will ruin your whole day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published Nov. 7, 2013 by Grit Magazine It’s raining here today. That’s a very good thing. Not only do we need the moisture, but it does wonders for the air quality in our neighborhood right now. A wildfire started early yesterday on Stone Mountain: just over a mile from where I sit.  The smoke in … Continue reading “Life in the Mountains: Wildfires”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-6959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-mountain-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6959"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19286,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959\/revisions\/19286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}