Red Creek fire, June 2010

A lightning-caused fire erupted in the Red Creek drainage back in June. As the crow flies, it's 2.5 miles from my house. After living thru the Missionary Ridge Fire in 2002, we were a little anxious about this one. News reports were pretty crappy, so I decided to hike to the fire to see for myself. I bushwhacked to the burn area thru spruce and aspen deadfall from the last fire. Pretty tiring stuff. I hiked into the burning basin and downhill (and downwind) from the fire. There were some kinda surprised smoke jumpers who didn't have to tell me to stay out of the way. I snapped some pix and hiked down and out. The fire was contained two days later.