We spent Saturday out in the backyard prepping the back retaining wall for plants (blog post forthcoming). Thankfully the back retaining wall is mostly covered in afternoon shade, but I was still drenched with sweat and drinking water like a desert traveler.

As I took a quick break to rehydrate, I gazed over the valley and saw a huge plume of smoke off in the distance. The Renaissance Man was running our mini rototiller and I quickly got his attention and got him to kill the motor. Pointing just to the right of Jefferson Mountain and our neighbors TV antenna, I asked “Do you think that’s a fire?”

For those of you that don’t know, The Renaissance Man was a wild land firefighter for almost a decade. He’s my go-to for identifying big plumes of smoke in the distance.

He quickly rattled off, “Yes, that’s a plume dominated fire…looks like it’s near Bend. Plume dominated fires are particularly dangerous because they can grow rapidly in size. We’ll have to check the SIT report.”

How about that for quick response!?

When The Renaissance Man was out on fires himself, I use to watch the SIT report like a crazy stalker. Sometimes if cell phone reception was bad where he was fighting a fire, the SIT report was the only information I could get about what was happening. I know more about reading a SIT report than I’d like to admit.

And if you live in Oregon, you know that our “plume dominated fire” has been named the Two Bulls Fire and it’s been all over the news. The fire which actually started as two different fires has now merged into one big fire and has burned about 6,100 acres, which according to The Renaissance Man is a relatively small fire. They’ve even evacuated several communities northwest of Bend.

I have a feeling it’s going to be a busy fire season, and I’m sending many positive thoughts to the fire fighters and their families. It’s a tough job, and they always get it done.