Fire Closing In

Work was as busy as it could possibly get yesterday. We had 144 checkouts and that alone was enough to keep us busy all morning, but we had other tasks to complete that complicated the checkouts. There was a hot water tank that failed and about 20 rooms that were connected to that tank had no hot water. That meant we had to deal with complaints from folks that had to take cold showers in the morning and we credited each of those rooms with $30 on their bill to compensate for the inconvenience. Each weekend from now until the end of September will most likely be as busy as this past weekend. There are big events scheduled each of those weekends and we will be booked to capacity each of those dates.

We also had a report of 2 fatalities from the bike race from Salt Lake City to Jackson over the weekend. One rider hit a pot-hole in the road and was tossed over a guard rail into the Snake River where he hit his head, fell unconscious, and drowned. The second rider that passed away had a heart attack. It was a very sad tale from an exciting event.

Now to the fire. It flared up big time yesterday morning as the wind picked up and fanned the flames. By the time we got off work at 3 PM, the fire was still spreading and gaining ground on Jackson. The fire is about 5 miles south of town and the fire crews are working feverishly to prevent it from spreading to the edge of town. Already, there has been one subdivision evacuated. We took a drive following work and were able to grab some photos of the fire and the crews that are working to contain it. Starting with the view at 3:30 PM from our fifth wheel:

and then while driving south past the edge of town:

The subdivision that was evacuated yesterday morning can be seen, along with the bare hillside that burned very close to these homes:

We found a location where the firemen were setting up a base of operations and we watched the helicopters go into action:

We had a pretty good view of the burn and the canyon where the fire was spreading, including a tree that caught fire in a relatively open area as we watched:

Finally, we got this shot as we were driving home for the evening and were about 2 blocks from home:

There isn't suppose to be any danger of this fire reaching town, but we have heard of situations that got out of control, unexpectedly, and changed the complexion of the outcome. We still don't know how the fire started and probably will find out when the fire is finally under control. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it is contained very soon...