Are wild fires in your neck of the woods devastating to old trees?

Took a ride to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon a couple weeks ago. There was a couple mile stretch of road leading to the park that had been burned out in a previous year. Pretty dismal look.

we have a 110 year growing season to return trees to full size. so when a fire devastates an area it is ugly for a long time. but that is nature. you end up with meadows and different vegetation.

big trees often survive fires that are not too hot. although when stressed and very dry it is hard for them not to burn up. their thick bark sometimes saves them.

also a fire doesnt always burn all around it moves along with terrain and air currents so patches will remain green when its brunt all around them.

thanks for the best wishes. the fire is getting closer and embers are jumping the road which crosses over to where my place is about a half mile down. its a high priority fire as the small town is nearby and in the path.

if interested you can google essex fire

yes it did. poker picked up from i believe the poor air quality all over the northwest. we have over 3/4 of a million acres of land on fire right now and smoke is bad in most areas and even much of canada above us.

from others and what i have seen many more people are playing just because they have to be inside. most of the golf courses around here are bare of people as any outdoor exercise is plain stupid.

so in effect its time to play poker. make hay when the sun shines as they say. but here its make money when the smoke drives you inside.

firefighters-using-train-cars-reach-essex-area-fire

I was just reading a book about the great fire of 1910 that burned millions of acres in this same area, in Idaho and Montana. The town of Wallace, Idaho was burned and other more remote towns were totally burned down. I think more than 100 people lost their lives in that fire, many of them firefighters.

Seems as though they have the situation under control, mostly. But drought conditions and winds can really kick things up in a hurry. Need some good September rains. Call in a rainmaker or do a dance yourself, Ray.

they are holding the fire somewhat. but mostly because the smoke is so thick the fires cant get enough o2 to fuel up.

the funny or not so funny part is that montana has these big copters with 300 gallon buckets which have be modified to take that size and which they use on state lands. but the federal forest service has declared that those helicopters should have no more than a 100 gallon bucket so wont let them fly and drop water.

most of these fires in the mountains only get put out when we get the first snowfall of the year. that blankets the fires and its gone.

but a big rain would sure help

I spent the night at the Izaak Walton Inn a couple of years ago.

Saw that the locals had to evacuate last night.

Wish I had more to offer than that we are all trying to make the wind blow the other way with our thoughts.

May be time for a sweat lodge ceremony.

We've been smoked out for days in Great Falls. We need some rain to knock the smoke down. WE might see some rain by Thursday or Friday.

we just had a big thunderstorm in kalispell. got a bunch of rain for a half hour. plenty of wind with it today. smoke cleared out but will be back as soon as the wind dies.

still much of the northwest is full of smoke and fires. biggest year in a long time for the fires.

just as i had expected when the smoke moved out of the valley the poker games got worse.
everyone must have gone back golfing, boating, whatever.

it is kind of like you have to pounce on the games when conditions get good. so many factors determine whether people are coming in to play or not. keeping tract of those conditions and paying attention will get you playing when the games are at their best.

it is almost certain now that the fire near my cabin wont get to burn me out.
snow has hit some of the high country and plenty of rain and cool weather. so i expect the big fire year is about ending.

still some will flare up as this week it will get hot againt and stay dry. most of the fires are winding down and new ones wont have enough time to grow too large before the fall snows come.

September is one of the worse fire months so i may be premature here. i hope not.

todd brunson is having his usual poker tournament in bigfork montana. he comes up each year to hold it and fleece all the local yolkales. the smoke kept him away until the very end when he had to show and the smoke cleared up. lucky for him. he has a cabin near flathead lake so visits us every summer for a time and holds a poker tournament.

I will keep my fingers crossed.

thanks doc. a person really sees how small they are when facing a major threat with little you can do personally to stop it.

what i have learned is that natural disasters can happen quickly and each of us needs to think about an exit strategy in advance.

fires, earthquake, tsunami, volcano, tornado, etc can get us anytime and losing everything isnt fun. and with almost no cost we can be prepared to save much of what we would have lost.

i see the pictures of the families with the flattened home from a tornado saying now they have nothing left in life in the way of possessions. keeping everything in one spot that is vulnerable is foolish.

So.... you're saying to open a player's box at the cardroom?

yea if your keeping your money in your house it can be toast. but really very valuable to you things should be kept in a safe deposit box or at least a fireproof and water proof box.

the last two tournaments i played in both times i got to have a fair amount of chips.
both times i blew them all off. of course i think i just was hard luck and got some tough situational beats. but in reality you have to assume maybe i played too loose or carelessly.

ill never know as its hard to go back and know what actually happened that i didnt see.
such as folded hands. but a player can pick out mistakes they did do that they can see.
after going over in my mind i do think i played too loose but did get some bad breaks
when making big moves.

fall is coming tomorrow. and that starts the poker season for much of the cooler climates.
in the pacific northwest we get more rain which keeps more people indoors. so poker gets some benefits of it.
golf is mostly done for the season but football is on tv and that hurts the day games on the weekends. but you cant have everything.

tomorrow also brings the part of the year where the nighttime is longer than daytime.
poker is a nighttime pastime in most areas. nighttime is money time for a poker player.

Ray, when I'm in Havre on a Friday I play the 1-2 no limit at PJ's. It's a total donkfest.

Ray, what happened with Brannigan's? I went in there to eat a couple of months ago and noticed the poker table was gone.

the games up on rt. 2 are real soft as you have found.
the secret to poker is to find places like that and make the cash. although thats not a town i would want to hang around in. nothing to do.

the game at brannigans is still there they moved the table into the next room. they only play mon. wed. fri. though. decnt game and you need at least a grand to play somewhat comfortably.

Ray, I can tell you a story about Havre. I'm not a young man. I'm 62 years old. I was at PJ's on a Sunday night. No poker game. I was at the bar drinking whiskey with no on else in the bar. These two young men, in their thirties, arrive in the bar. They seemed to be very cordial. I bought them a couple of rounds of drinks.

Then for a reason I can't fathom they turned on me. They told me they were going to beat me up. I said to the lady bartending that I will just leave so as not to cause any trouble. I walked out the door and the two young men followed me outside. It was about midnight and there was no one else on the street. It was about a 4 block walk back to my hotel room.

When I seen them follow me out the door I immediately turned around and walked back in the bar. I explained the situation to the bartender and she ordered them to leave. They left.

A few minutes later, knowing they were gone, I walked outside to smoke a cigarette. I looked around to make sure the coast was clear. It was clear, at least I thought. The corner of the buildiing was not far away and I didn't know what was around the corner. I turned my back to it. A few seconds later I got blindsided. They attacked me from my back. I got blindsided hard and it drove me into the brick wall.

It busted my forehead wide open bigtime. I was bleeding like a stuck pig. The bartender heard the crash into the wall and ran outside, She called the paramedics. I was taken to the hospital and sewed up.

A cop came to the hospital and interviewed me. When I was in the bar one of the culprits told me his name was Mike Sharp. I related that to the officer. The Havre Cops and the District Attorney jammed up Mike Sharp. But it was his friend in the bar that night who had blindsided me. His name was Brown.

I was in contact with the Havre cops and the Dictrict Attorney even though I live in Great Falls. They promised me and did get a conviction on the young man who blindsided me. They made him pay the price.

I tell everyone this today. The citizens of Havre are the greatest people ever. I was attacked by a hoodlem in Havre, But the citizens of Havre made sure I had medical attention....and then they made sure the idiot who attacked me payed a heavy price for it.

good story and lucky you survived. ive been in havre lots of times and the people are great. all country people seem to be good. its surprising you had a problem there like that.
and i would expect the authorities to make it right as it isnt all good old boys and payoff up there.
havre is too isolated for me and way too windy and cold. i only pass through or stop when hunting or fishing in that part of the state.