Sunday, April 3, 2016

An Amber Colored Night

I grew up in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains just north of the Shenandoah Valley. It rained often, which produced very moist and lush forests for as far as the eye could see over rolling green hills. Naturally, wildfires were not something I was accustomed to in my part of the world. When I moved closer to the Atlantic Ocean, I dealt more with hurricanes than with wildfires.
            Although my experience with fire is limited, that is not to say that the sight of a raging fire consuming all around it, is still a powerful image to behold, such as the one I chose to write about. On July 29, 2014 in Washington State near Leavenworth, a wildfire broke out and scorched over 22,000 acres of land. Photographer Michael Stanford captured an intense image of the blaze consuming the mountain side, the orange glow of firelight set the night alight as bright as day. The cause of the fire is not mentioned, but based on the fire behavior triangle, the topography of the location is the first that comes to mind to cause the fire to spread. Up hill, the fuel in front of the fire is closer to the flame itself, because of the inclined angle so it dries out and hits the combustion temperature (which at the cellulose level the ignition temperature is around 350 degrees Celsius) faster. From the photo we can see the fire has already come up and over the mountainside, slowing as it declines and heads towards the river. With the aid of the wind, the fire fanned out and spread.
            The Chiwaukum Creek fire (as it was later known by) was eventually contained and extinguished within several days. Although the fire is gone, this powerful image still remains as a lasting reminder of the sheer force a wildfire can have on an environment.


Work Cited

Visser, Nick. "This Washington Wildfire Photo Shows The Raw Power Of A Raging Blaze." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 31 July 2014. Web. 04 Apr. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/30/washington-wildfire_n_5635380.html?utm_hp_ref=wildfires>.


No comments:

Post a Comment