Close Call, Or So I Thought

Last night around 6:20 p.m. or so, the wind changed from south to north and the Cooper Mountain Ranch fire up in Kent county got out of hand. That's the name of the fire I've been reporting on, I just didn't know it until I heard it on the news last night. Officials evacuated Rotan around 7:20 p.m., then allowed them back in about 10:30 p.m. It seems silly that I was all scared about the fire coming here when people were heading out this way to get to safety, but the announcement came over my weather radio, and that really got me going.

I didn't start smelling smoke until last night after Rotan was given the all clear. This morning it is very smoky and promising to be another windy day, so I'm going to keep on feeling silly and water the yard some more. My TxDOT source says he was out until 2:30 p.m. last night and went back to work at 7:30 a.m. this morning to run a maintainer up north fighting the fire. To the layman, a maintainer is a Caterpillar; up north is Kent County.

The photo is of airplanes that I keep seeing flying in and out of the fire zone. People I know were surprised about the fire because I had never mentioned it. It has become that common for a fire to be burning, I don't even bother mentioning it in day to day conversation. We've been watching it burn for days and hearing the sounds of helicopters and planes working to battle the flames.

Check out stories and video about the fire on Big Country Home Page, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, the Abilene Reporter News, and anything else you can Google.