Coleman Fire - Day One

Today I needed a break from being home alone, sick with pneumonia and some sort of weird eye inflammation (not red eye) and recovering from the emotional toll of two weeks of family turmoil right during the last leg of the quarter and my Cal Poly undergrad career. The moment I became aware that a new wildfire (Coleman Incident) had broken out on the post of Fort Hunter Liggett following on the heels of the still-burning 3,000 acre Stoney Fire nearby, I grabbed my dog, my meds, and my camera, and got in the car and went firechasing for a few hours. I headed north on US101 and then headed west on Jolon Road and followed it all the way to Pine Canyon Road where I captured the following images prior to firefighting assets making their way into the area as they began to do as I left to head home. By the end of today's burn period the fire was reported to have consumed 2,800 acres and some projections suggest it might ultimately burn 30,000 acres.
*Note: updated 6/05/16

I captured this image on Jolon Road between Lockwood and Jolon with view looking northwest.

Skull-faced cloud (side perspective with sun as glowing left eye).

All but the first image were captured on Pine Canyon Road at Shetland Drive looking west-southwest into the Ventana Wilderness Area just outside Fort Hunter Liggett.

I didn't have to wait long for the fire to slop over the main ridgeline in this case the right flank of the head.

Note the tanker retardant drop being made on the fire's edge at left.

A short time later the left flank of the head slopped over the ridgeline.

Today's fire activity was slope, fuel, and wind driven alike.

No noticeable sunspots today.

The contrail suddenly emerging from behind the cloud surprised me and after making an adjustment I shot this image.

All photographs by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).
*Note: thanks Linsis for cleaning up the lint artifacts in these images!