Lightning Strike Above.

    There was a pretty serious thunder and lightning storm roll through here yesterday. Socked the valley in and we were treated to about 45 minutes worth of nature's fury. 

Several sounded really close, and I wondered about the possibility of a local strike.

Turns out my hunch was right. A forestry fire-fighting crew arrived in the yard this morning, informing me of a fire going up on the high ridge above me here at about the 1200m level that had turned up on the strike radar, and I gave them the ok to use the area out front in their efforts to put it out.

Pretty soon a helicopter arrived on scene.

 I went down and chatted briefly with the pilot, Kevin was hooking up his long-line to sling a couple portable water tanks up near the fire for the ground crew that was hiking their way up to the strike site.

 He came back for his monsoon-bucket and hopped over to the river for a load.

 He dropped the load then disappeared behind the ridge where he had found some small water-hole up there in the alpine to bucket from, saving himself coming all the way back down to the river-level. 

He came back and landed when he was done to stow away his long-line, monsoon-bucket and stuff. He told me the fire was history, and went on his way back to base.

While I was sitting here writing this post this evening, someone drove in the yard to let me know they had been driving in from up-valley and had seen smoke up on the high ridge above, so it looks like the fire has flared-up once more, and there will probably be some more helicopter activity around here tomorrow.