Fire in the hole!

 I've had a lot of bosses who could stand to follow today's stoic quote.  Those bosses are a large part of the reason that I am interested in stoic philosophy.

"What you shun enduring yourself, attempt not to impose on others.  You shun slavery - beware enslaving others.  If you can endure to do that, one would think that you had been once upon a time a slave yourself.  For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor freedom with slavery." - Epictetus (born a slave, disabled, and later banished from Rome along with all philosophers by emperor Domitian)

There was a significant wildfire nearby a couple of days ago.  It started in the late afternoon and grew rapidly in size.   The forest is pretty dry right now, and I keep hearing chainsaws in the neighborhood, which always makes me cringe this time of year.  

Internal combustion engines are not currently allowed on state land due to fire conditions.  Just because the land is private property doesn't make the fire hazard any different.  Anyhow this fire really grew fast, right before it was time for me to head out for work on night shift.  I set up the sprinkler at the property line that was closest to the fire and drove to work.

Below:  What it looked like when I went to work.  You will notice there are no trees growing near the shop.  I cleared all that.

On the way to work I saw this choppa with a Bambi Bucket on the way to the fire.  Probably stupid to try to take a picture like this while driving down the highway at 75 mph, but there ya go.

Then I got to work, and started seeing sad stuff on social media like these things below.

A few neighbors shared the photos below.  You don't want to see this, ever.  No amount of preparation can make you perfectly safe from a 50 ft high wall of flames.

A couple of aftermath photos, also by neighbors.  I'm staying clear of the area right now so as not to be a looky-loo nuisance to firefighters and neighbors.

The burn area looks like the fire wasn't terribly intense.  I've seen burns where there was nothing but bare dirt and ash, and the soil was probably sterilized several inches below the surface.  I'm not sure precisely where the last two images were taken, but the area looks recently logged - there are no large trees at all.  There was likely lots of dry undergrowth available to feed the fire.

We are really blessed that the regional air tanker fire retardant refill point is about 5 minute's flight time away from us.  This is a large part of the reason the fire was so quickly brought under control.  It appears that no structures were lost, even though nearly 100 acres full of homesteads burned.  

The Kootenai county fire chief held an informative press conference yesterday.  Crews are still working over hot spots, and the cause of the fire is under investigation.