Follow up on the fire

Just to close out yesterday's story about the woods fire, as night fell the temperatures on Elk Mountain dropped into the 30s and the humidity rose to 45%, a combination that helped the fire go to sleep for the night.  By that time, a fireline had been dug with bulldozers and hand tool crews completely around the perimeter of the fire and the fire was allowed to burn itself out.

Many firefighters were involved in the effort, including 7 stations from Buncombe County and 3 stations from Asheville city.  (Several other county stations were also called to backfill the Reems Creek station.)  A large number of wildland firefighters from the N.C. Forest Service also responded.  Some of the special assets that were called included a state police helicopter that circled until the fire was contained.  The ground crews were having trouble seeing which directions the fire was spreading because of the large amount of smoke, but the helicopter crew was able to tell the crews where the fire was headed and which houses were in danger. The Forest Service also brought in bulldozers to plow a fire line across the ridge top to keep the fire from blowing over to the other side on the mountain.  Crews using rakes and chain saws worked the left and right flanks of the fire to clear fire lines to keep the fire from moving laterally. Engines were also sent to each of the threatened houses to clear perimeters around the homes. Those crews were also prepared to coat the houses in fire resistant foam if the fire moved their way.  In the end, the fire was stopped by the fire lines before it got to the houses.  The terrain was very steep and rugged, posing extra risks for the crews working the lines.  Buncombe County EMS deployed their special ops medic team, trained and equipped with special climbing gear and back-pack carried medical supplies, up near the fire lines, but fortunately they had no firefighter injuries to treat.

Luckily for Norris, he arrived a little late to the party, but was assigned the job of helping to establish the incident command post.  Buncombe County sent one of their command buses to the site to house the incident command team and Norris was assigned the job of establishing the communications nets.  Separate radio nets were set up for the structure protection units and for the fire line units. Complicating the communications problems were the combination of city, county, and state resources, all using separate radio systems.   Except for the Forest Service crews, all the Buncombe and Asheville units were cleared from the scene before 10pm.  The Forest Service crews were back on the scene this morning doing mop up.

Here are some links to TV stories related to the fire.  The first story covers the Wednesday fire:
7 acre wood fire

The video was taken fairly early in the fire before it reached its full size, but you can see that several large homes were not far above the fire.

This second video was done today following yet another woods fire in our area (which really isn't mentioned much in the story).  It features some footage of the Reems Creek FD and some brief comments from the chief about the dangers of burning when the temperatures are warm and the ground cover is so dry.
fire danger from dry conditions

This would have been a more interesting blog post if Norris had been able to take some pictures of his own, but things were pretty busy for him until later in the evening when it had gotten dark and pictures wouldn't have turned out very well.

These are not clouds....

Just as Norris was leaving work today, Cheryl overheard the RCFD crews, with a lot of assistance from other departments, all heading to a brush fire on the other side of Elk Mountain from where we live.

From our house, it just looks like some nice clouds over the mountain

But listening to the people in charge of the vehicles and crews, it's obviously not so peaceful over there.  There was a helicopter visible about 20 minutes ago, and they have just called for another 5-man crew to be on standby nearby. One of the problems is just getting the firefighters and equipment to the location.  Earlier they were concerned about two residences but they think they have them secured.

Norris may have a long afternoon - there is a good breeze here today and conditions have been dry.

When you improve one area...

... then you have to fix up another. Our screened porch expansion this summer meant steps we formerly used to get from the front to the back of the house wound up under the deck and needed to be moved. But we didn't just move the steps, we upgraded to stone.  In the foreground are the steps that go from the top of the wooden curved set up to the level of the raised garden - in the background is a new stacked stone retaining wall and more stairs that take you to the level of the back of the house.

We have to admire the expertise of the landscaping crew that moved these huge rocks and positioned them to be level and spaced for an easy climb.  To honor the work of these young men, here are some additional views. There is also a lot of new shrubbery, but all you can see right now is the mulch that was blown in yesterday.  In the upper right of this next photo you might spot our relocated witch hazel. Its February blooms should brighten up this area a bit. To the right of it, behind and to the right of the raised garden, are five new itea, and a pair of new beautyberries.  Only one itea is visible on the far right here. To the left of the witch hazel are some ten new winter blooming jasmine, and 20 ferns right along the new retaining wall.

Here's another view from the top of those stairs. Our landscaper now has a talented designer who is responsible for the plant choices and locations. She also added another American Beautyberry to the slope next to the big retaining wall - and one of the displaced clethra moved to the same area.

Let's have one last shot of the back, with our original stairs to the logging road and view of the back steps. The large flat rock next to the porch stairs conceals a large drain.

The angle in the next photo shows we displaced a lot of plants.  The rhubarbs had to move to make room for the steps, and an entire row of shrubs in front of the studio on the lower level found new homes around the yard to make room for the stepping stones that lead you to this new stone hardscaping.

This is how the path from the front door looks today.

While we're here let's pause to appreciate the fall color of one of the St. John's Worts. These went in as little plants no more than 8 inches high just over four years ago. This one has been pruned to about a third of the size it had before the landscape makeover started.

Here's that purple beautyberry at the top of the driveway. The color really stands out in the bleakness of the late fall.

The curved set of wood steps are now bordered on one side by many of the clethra that formerly lived next to the deck or in front of the studio, and on the other by a new row of diervilla, also known as  bush honeysuckle. They are very green here, but are a deciduous plant.

One final view down the stairs.  We hope the diervilla will serve as a pretty border between the meadow and the steps.

For now, we're looking at a lot of mulch and the bare wildflower meadow - we'll just have to wait to see how it will develop next spring and in the coming years.

Thanksgiving Refugees

On his way home from work tonight, Norris ran into a gang of over 20 turkeys on our street.  Since there is no hunting allowed in our neighborhood, we think they were looking for a place to lay low until after Thursday.  There were even more turkeys along the road than what would fit in the picture.

A campus tour

Cheryl's sister Joyce has been making campus tours with her daughter Niki and this weekend, with the region enjoying 70+ degree weather, they came to the University of South Carolina at Columbia. Cheryl met them at their hotel near the airport a little before noon, and we headed to the campus for the official student-led tour.  Since we were early, we walked around and acquainted ourselves with the beautiful and historic Horseshoe where the oldest buildings on the campus are, and found the Student Union which is an impressive and modern building half a block away. Here are Joyce and Niki waiting for the official tour to begin.

The tour started in the McKissick building at the tip of the horseshoe. The building, constructed by the WPA in 1937, originally housed the university library, not that we learned that on the tour. Although the tour was recommended in a regional guidebook of ours because the school,established in 1801, has a lot of history, our guide concentrated only on the academic strengths of USC and the positive aspects of life on campus for prospective students.

This building is now a museum, and the impressively large, mostly underground library nearby, was part of the tour.

The Longstreet Theater is where Niki would perform, if she chooses to attend USC with her business major/dance minor.

It was the only stop on the tour that our guide was prompted to give any historical information about, informing us it is rumored to be haunted because it was a morgue during the Civil War.  What Cheryl had recently read in Civil War history was that the school ceased to function when the students all went off to join the army, and the entire campus was turned into a Confederate hospital. The official USC history says that the theater housed both Confederate and Union hospitals, and an arsenal. It is named for the University's President of 1857-1861 - not the famed General who served in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

On Monday, Niki will meet with school officials in both the business and dance departments and will take a dance class. She has three other schools she is considering, but we would be happy if she chooses USC. The campus is only three hours away so we would enjoy seeing her performances and perhaps she would come and stay with us for short holidays.  Norris planned to make the trip, but he has been under the weather, so he stayed home and watched football.

A bright spot of white

Work on landscape improvements started on Monday. Two of the guys did some pruning and cleanup, and yesterday, some huge rocks were delivered. You can see that some of them were too heavy for the pallet they were on. More are stacked next to the pressure-treated wood that used to hold up the screened porch roof (we replaced them with cedar when we had the porch expanded.) The wood and stone will both be used to add more steps around the porch addition and raised garden..

 
The equipment to move the stones into place is also parked off the turnaround end of the driveway.

Progress is slow since it was snowing yesterday and there's a very cold rain falling this morning.  No one showed up at all.

But looking out over the landscape, we are cheered by this bright spot on a gloomy day.

 

(Please ignore the root-waterer and hose).  This is also an American Beautyberry.  One of those that were planted in this area next to the walkway to the Thoughtful Spot was not healthy. Obviously, the replacement is not the same lovely purple, but white is nice too! 

 

The berries on this shrub are more densely clustered than on any of the purple ones.