Rainy Day in Denver

It’s may and you’d think that Summer would start at some point but no, it hasn’t. It is the middle of May and outside it is raining and snowing. Which leads me to believe that Summer is coming and it is going to be hot, long and super dry. In other words we can look forward to some seriously big wildfires in the area.

Wildfires in the western United States are amazing. Last Summer, I watched a 200 foot high wall of flames shoot up into the air in Central Montana. To see this I was watching from a windows from my house in Helena to a location 30 miles to the North.

Every time I see fires that large I get a twinge in my stomach. I just think, “God, I hope nobody gets in the way or gets trapped. And, that was the third storm I have witnessed where the storm cloud was so large that it created a thunderstorm. In broad daylight, I could see lightening streaming through the cloud (I was too far away to hear the thunder).

Fighting fires feels like war. Helicopters swoop around beating the air with their fat blades while carrying buckets of water and large bombers rumble through the sky shaking the whole town as they fly slowly off into the distance to drop more retardant. In the distance you see these machines as tiny specs highlighted against a huge black cloud. You can realize in one moment how insignificant we and our fancy machines are when compared to nature.