In My Back Pocket - Photography
'It is not what you look at that matters. It's what you see.' – Henry David Thoreau
Wilson Prairie Wildfire
Thursday night – I’m checking the La Crete Online webpage lacreteonline.com/ for the next stock car race out on Wolf Lake Road (closer to Blumenort); there, I read and see pictures of a forest fire out on Wilson Prairie Road – south and east from La Crete, Alberta; windrows and forested land are ablaze. No one has been evacuated and only one home seems to be in the fire’s track. The Wilson Prairie area contains back roads of a Mennonite farming community, roads I used to drive when shuffling Home Education curriculum around to students – their names and faces and the faces of their parents come to mind. My hope for them is that the fire can be contained quickly and that they will not be affected. When I think through my students I’m reminded that the first home education student I met and worked with was one I had to get to by driving on Wilson Prairie Road and then finding another road – Savage Prairie Road. On Thursday evening, I drove out to the fire site staying a few hours, snapping photos and chatting with concerned residents driving by, amazed by the sight. It’s the second wildfire in the La Crete area this summer. On Thursday night, traffic tapered off around 1:00 a.m. with an occasional farmer still coming out to watch, to look and to assess.
Listening to – Matthew Perryman Jones’ Stones from the Riverbed. Other songs of the day are Sarah Masen’s Hope, Over the Rhine’s Spark, and Rumble by Link Wray and the Wraymen.
Quote to Inspire – “The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust.
I almost hated to hit the Like button because of the devastation that fire brings but your images really capture the progression. Hope all is well.
Hey there, Gina:
My intent with the pictures is to show more of how a wildfire is dealt with … so, me too; hitting the like button would be an odd thing to do within an emergency. Between Friday and Saturday there’d be as many as nine new fires start with lightning strikes in the region. As of yesterday, everything was being managed and air support with air tankers, bombers and slinging was solid.
Thanks for looking in. 🙂
Jeepers creepers…that looks pretty scary. Great photos.
Hey there, Becky:
It sounds like the fire is 65% under control as of today and may be something that started from a smouldering peet fire. There’s less smoke today.
Thanks for looking in. 🙂