Gas prices really, really, really suck.

The was the view Friday night of just part of what’s now being termed the Pinnacle Ridge Fire. It was hard to find a good spot to take a picture of the whole fire. You could see one section here it went in a straight line up the mountain that had definitely jumped the Parkway. The line of fire pictured above was below the Parkway road and we quite a site. The Forest Service helicopter was a constant presence the last few days. Seemed like they were just keeping an eye on things as they never attached the water bucket again. It’s was fun having the house shake as it roared overhead to make landings in the park just beyond my place.

Here’s the latest news stolen from the C-T site:

Meanwhile, part of the Blue Ridge Parkway remained closed because of a 425-acre fire at Pinnacle Ridge near Balsam Gap in Haywood County. That fire was 95 percent contained by Sunday evening, said David Brown with the N.C. Forest Service. It should be fully contained by noon today.

Rain had been helpful for firefighters. “Without it, this fire could have easily gone over 1,000 acres,” Brown said.

The fire crossed over the parkway at Pinnacle Tunnel, forcing officials to close the southern portion of the scenic road from U.S 23/74 at Balsam Gap to N.C. 215 at Beech Gap.

Now it looks like there’s another wildfire going or else the original one has really spread. If it has spread, I would imagine that it’s now burning an area of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

After I got home yesterday, fire trucks, EMS vehicles and an ambulance went screaming up the road over the course of about a half hour. I suspected that someone’s house had caught on fire. The yard needed a mow so I got out and got started. From my back yard I could see the plume of smoke rising up over the ridge and smell burning wood.

I continued to mowing thinking about some person loosing their house and possessions and about how sad that was. I thought about the ambulance and hoped that nobody was hurt. But by the time I finished the back yard I was thinking that this wasn’t a house fire as the smoke had been very steady the entire time. Maybe a brush fire that got out of control?

I heard the helicopter over the lawn mower. I switched the mower off and looked up to see a bright yellow ‘copter (I think it belongs to the Forest Service) bank over the ridge. It started to descend and came in low right over my house and landed in the park just beyond. When it took off it had a huge bucket attached. The town water reservoir is at the end of the road and that’s where they headed. The helicopter made some passed over the fire and then landed and took off again.





They continued dumping water for about and hour and then they were gone. The smoke from the fire had lessened considerably. So it seemed like everything was under control.

Now it doesn’t appear to be so. You can see the smoke from the fire here at work and it looks to be much larger than yesterday. This photo was taken from the parking lot here a half an hour ago (about 10:50 a.m.).

The grapevine tells me that a fireman got seriously burned in the fire yesterday. That is sad news. As for the fire, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens …