Wildfire Update

 

I did a ride this week past Rova Farms to check out the remnants of one of the wildfires that have been popping up because of the dry weather. As I mentioned last week there was a wildfire in my area called the Shogun fire. It was on S. Stump Tavern Rd and was started by a person firing a shogun at a firing range using ammo called "Dragon's Breath" which has some extra magnesium in it so that the blast is brighter and has more sparks. First that ammo is illegal, second using something that creates "more sparks" when the fire danger is this high is plain stupid. They did find out who started the fire and he has turned himself in. However the damage is done with over 300 acres burnt. 

The burnt forest isn't as badly damage as I suspected. Yes most of the underbrush is gone or burnt but most of the trees looked undamaged. There are scorch marks on the trunks of the trees but that is about it. The Jackson fire department did a good job of containing the fire. 

The main reason I wanted to check out the damage is that the back of my house faces a forest so I wanted to know how dangerous that could be given the current conditions. During the Shogun fire the Jackson fire department did have to protect a few houses that were in the path of the fire. The created fire breaks around the houses and had fire trunks in the neighborhood to put out any fires that threaten any homes. There was no damage to any structures during the fire so I suspect that the fire department could prevent a fire from damaging my house if there was a fire was in the area. Of course I am hoping for a lot of rain so soon so that I won't have to worry about that possibility. 

On a completely different subject. I led an off the books ride this Saturday up to Jamesburg. We found a good coffee shop that would makes good muffins and fritters so I may head up that way more often. While we were in the area we stopped to check out on of the posse members that we haven't seen in a while.

We snuck into his community and did a surprise visit. He didn't join us on today's ride because he was providing some narration for a production in his community which I know he will be good at. It was good to see him and hopefully he will join us on our rides again soon.