Wildfires in Idaho

I was up in Kuna, Idaho this weekend with my roommates Stephen and Danny. We had a lot of fun, and on the way back we passed by the site of a very large fire! This photo was taken as we approached it. The entire mountain was burned!

It took us maybe fifteen or twenty minutes of driving before we came to this--charred out land that stretches right to the base of the highway, and even a little bit on the other side!

Don't worry, it's only the camera that was hanging out the window, not me! But this shot was taken head on. It must have been a really intense fire to have burned entire mountains and hills, and come so close to the highway here.

You can see the smoke in the mountains from the remnants of the fire.

This was an interesting sign posted on both sides of the highway as you approached the hot area. Most of the stuff before this had cooled down already, but there were still a couple of hot spots. On the way up, we passed this area at night, and you could see the flames deep in the hills! Very cool. Reminded me of Mordor.

Yes, there was smoke. In fact, it seems that the entire sky was overcast because of the fire, and that most of the cloud cover in these pictures is in fact smoke. Whenever I opened the window, we got this intense smoky smell from the outside. When we passed through this cloud, for a few miles visibility was only about one hundred yards.

I've definitely got a lot of respect for wildfires after this experience.