In Albuquerque, we haven’t had a whole lot of smoke in the last few days. It’s mostly been blowing south of the city. InciWeb says that 32 residences has been destroyed, which is impressive considering this is now the largest fire in Arizona’s history at over 500,000 acres.
The 4000 people fighting this fire deserve far more credit than I can possible give.
The view of the Sandia Mountains from my front window the last few days has been obscured by smoke from the Wallow fire near the New Mexico border in Alpine, Arizona. This fire is affecting the Albuquerque area by creating a cloud of smoke which besides the smell has caused some ash to fall from the sky.
Normally I have a clear view of the Sandias except when we have a storm.
It’s bad enough that the last two nights I have had to turn off the cooler because it was filling the house with the smell of forest fire.
This is going to be a bad year for fires unless we get some rain, which the Albuquerque area hasn’t received a significant rain storm since early this year.
The Arizona Republic as a good FAQ on the Wallow Fire and An image from the NOAA shows the smoke plume (I don’t know if the NOAA has a direct source to this image).
Update 06/07/2011: The trend for the last few days is the smoke goes away during the day and settles back in during the evening. It feels like a nuclear winter. Here are a few pictures I took from the office building last night, note the red dot which is the sun.
While the smoke here in Rio Rancho and Albuquerque is bad, it’s not nearly as bad as for those who actually live where the fire is. The local paper The White Mountain Independent has information about all of the evacuations in the area.
Latest map from the NOAA.
Doesn't Fit In 