We’ve had a few very bad days for smoke between the Coutta Wilderness fire and the fires in North Carolina. But today is pretty clear, a beautiful day on the deck. (I blew a ton of leaves earlier, so don’t think I’m goofing off. ) There’s still a lot of color out on Dividing Ridge and off toward Franklin Mountain in NC. Current porch temp is almost 70.
I don’t think I’d visit if you were especially sensitive to smoke. There have been some days where I felt a little headachy, and wished I didn’t have to be out in it, even in the car.
If you come, please don’t burn anything and be very careful with charcoal grills. Clear the leaves away, because everything is so dry, a leaf fire would spread quickly.
The Cohutta fire has been going on for over a month, and they’re predicting they’ll have it contained by the end of the month. I guess they feel good about it, because they’re handing command it off to a team from California tomorrow. So far, it hasn’t jumped the Jacks and gotten into the Jones Community, Watson Gap, Dyer Gap, and Hemptop/Big Frog. Those are the closest to us, and I hope they will survive the fire. All the roads are still closed, except for residents.
You can see the updates from the command center on this link.
http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5078/
I’ll have a bit more to say about the ecological impact in a future column.