Burning up

Literally . . . Alaska is burning up. We have had a phenomenal summer. All sun and no rain. Sounds like a perfect summer, eh? Well, one would think so, but not for us here in Alaska.

Wild fires have been raging in the interior part of the state for months now. When Bluepoof and her friends visited from California via their motorcycles, there was a LOT of smoke in their path both coming to and going from Anchorage. Trust me – while that much smoke is bad enough when riding INSIDE a vehicle, it is that much worse while out in the open on a motorcycle.

But all of that was up north of us. We weren’t being bothered by the smoke so, while we were empathetic, we just went about our own business.

Yet we were H-O-T!!! We’ve been melting at an increasingly uncomfortable rate. Now, I know that to many of you who might pop in from time to time to read this – 75 degrees does not seem H-O-T. Trust me, it is. We Alaskans have become melted Popsicles. We are puddles of sticky goo. We are flat out uncomfortable.

Mornings are not so bad, mind you. As I type this my toes and my fingers are a tad chilly. By the way, it is amazing to me just how much warmer my feet feel when I simply put on a pair of birk sandals. You wouldn’t think, perhaps, that sandals would warm up your feet – but they do.

As the day goes on and the sun burns off the early morning fall fog, the temps begin to go up and up and up. Yesterday, in fact, they went UP so much here on the peninsula that one of our communities garnered the HIGH temp for the state – Cooper Landing hit 90+ degrees yesterday afternoon. Now, friends, that is H-O-T by ANYONE’s book, I’m thinking.

We also had an increased amount of smoke yesterday afternoon. It settled like a veil over Kenai and eyes teared as noses itched and we sneezed and sneezed and wiped eyes. Miserable. We blamed it all on the fires in the Interior, of course, because – what did we know? Apparently nothing. You see, there were four new fires yesterday, and two of them were within a half hour’s drive of where we live. THAT, my friends, is too close for my comfort.

I had wondered at one point yesterday why all of those sirens were going off. It almost sounded like the Emergency Siren, but not quite. Turns out that every fire company on the peninsula practically was called out to fight the fires. I don’t smell smoke this morning like I did yesterday, so perhaps their fight paid off.

I hope so. The entire peninsula is a tinderbox. It has been for years. The spruce were hit by the spruce bark beetle and we have lost most of them. A drive towards Homer or Anchorage is quite unsettling – to see all of those once stately green/black needled trees reduced to dry, shriveled up, red-brown shadows of themselves. Sigh. Add to the dryness of the trees, the overall dryness of the area, due to the no rain situation, and we are living in the midst of a tinderbox.

On a good note – even though I dread winter each year – the fireweed has topped out and that means that snow is only a few weeks away. We will probably see white in about 6 weeks or so. On a bad note – I understand that the height of the fireweed stalks supposedly tells you how deep the snow will be. If that is true, my friends, we are in for a LOAD of snow this winter. Better get the snow-blower tuned up and the studded tires ready for mounting.

Oh, and I need a new winter coat, too. I gave last year’s away because it had gotten too big on me. Of course, I could always wear my purple leather riding jacket. ;-)

Posted by Purplemoose at August 17, 2004 08:12 AM