Summertime means Arizona wildfires. I took this picture from our apartment complex about an hour before sundown today. (Click on the photo for a larger image). This fire is on the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. It's probably 60 miles from where we are. You can see downtown Tucson just below the mountain. The highest peak to the right of the smoke is Mt. Wrightson, the highest peak in the Santa Ritas at 8666 feet above sea level.
The fire was sparked by a lightning strike the other day and has grown to at least 400 acres by now. We first noticed it while driving to church this morning. During the day, we could just see smoke. But after the sun went down we could actually see orange (flames). Here's an article about the fire from the Arizona Daily Star.
UPDATE: We were near the Tucson Airport on Tuesday, July 12th and took another picture. So far it has burned about 2000 acres. News reports speculate that it could burn up to 18,000 acres by Friday. But it's not all bad, according to this news article.
1 comment:
Just wanted to let you know that Mt. Wrightson is actually 9,453 feet above sea level.
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