Afternoon burn

Spot news is quirky, you can go weeks or even months with little or no action and then over a week or two it seems like everything is on fire around town. Today had me running to just beyond city limits for a compost fire.

Afternoon winds fueled the blaze which swept from one pile to the next igniting the compost and sending a thick column of smoke across Sugar Road and over Tracy. I parked across the street and had to hike into the fire scene again.  This time I made sure to stay clear of the blowing smoke.

Over the scanner I could hear firefighters working to contain the blaze as embers jumped across the rows fanned by the winds.  Three engine companies, two water tenders, reserve crews and the compost company's water trucks worked to break down the burning piles and smother the flames.

The fire department said the fire could last anywhere from several hours to a few days. Until then residents will be able to savor the odor coming from the burning piles as the smoke drifts south over town.

Heat

I wasn't going to bother going to this grass fire burning well outside city limits but listening to the scanner they kept sending different fire departments to the scene.  With all the commotion I just had to go take a look.

The fire was burning in a irrigation ditch along Tracy Boulevard about 3/4 of a mile from Howard Road.  The California Highway Patrol had set up a roadblock so I had to hoof it in to the scene. The fire was slowly moving through the heavy brush and trees of the ditch, a term i learned was called "skunking around." The 20 mile-per-winds were still driving the fire and smoke a decent clip as crews raced to either end to try and knock it down.

I left my fire resistant wildlands fire gear in the car (a brilliant move on my behalf) so I made my way along the ditch carefully as the flames moved in front of and behind me.  I had a good escape route down the levee to Tracy Boulevard but the smoke was making for difficult times. Between the acrid sting in my eyes and the near zero visibility at times for the blowing smoke I was just content to stand there and wait for an opening to shoot.

As the wind drive the fire through the ditch tule and trees began to ignite. the popping sound was a might unnerving but what was worse was a call for crowning condition, the fire was racing to the tops of the trees in the ditch. The flames licked outward from the tree tops send columns of smoke billowing into the sky. Exposures were tricky as I was shooting into a partially obscured sun by the rising smoke with the trees and other foliage in deep shadows.

I managed to get a couple of shot that showed the flame height and some that had crews battling the flames before the smoke covered everything too densely again.  Done with the fire I arrived back at the office, streaked with soot and smelling like an old campfire. My one lesson learned form this fire was to pack a bottle of Visine eye drops to ease the burning sensation form the smoke.

Heat

When I heard the call of a haystack fire at a farm just outside of town I grabbed my camera gear and headed out the door.  As bas they are haystack fires can make for some spectacular visuals.

The fire would go on to destroy 110 tons of alfalfa hay and burn for almost three days. A cause was never found as the fire burned so hot it would have destroyed any evidence of the fire's origin.

I was also treated to my first power line failure as a service drop above the burning hay melted through in a shower of sparks.  All in all some noteworthy images to be had from this fire.

A change in programing

Due to some upcoming projects I have underway in the near futureI have had to make a change to my blogging.  I have started a new blog Through the Viewfinder to follow my photography adventures on the trail and elsewhere except at work.  All work discussions will remain here on the Snapshots blog.

Everything at Through the Viewfinder is my own personal content with no connection to the Tracy Press.  Please feel free to follow along with my hiking, aviation and other photography adventures at the new blog site.

Why

Why?
That is the question that has echoed across the nation today as we mourn the loss of life in the school shooting in Connecticut.
No one can fathom a reason as to why anyone would walk into a school and kill children, it is beyond comprehension and my heart goes out to the victims families and the community grieving their losses.  Standing at the entrance to El Pescadero Skate Park at Parker Avenue and Grant Line Road today I asked the same question, why, as police officers began examining a shooting scene there Friday afternoon.

Early police reports say a man on a bicycle and a man in a two-door truck opened fire on each other in the parking lot of Tracy Interfaith Ministries which sits at the entrance to the skate park.  Several shots were fired with the truck being struck at least four times. A person in the truck received a gunshot wound and was driven to Sutter Tracy Community Hospital. The truck sat in the parking with the bullets holes including one in the windshield marking the gun battle's violence.

Why they would begin shooting in the parking lot where nearby kids play on skateboards? Why would they open fire next to the building that serves families in need with parents pushing their children in strollers pass by? Why would they open fire next to an apartment complex? Today's shooting at the park could have ended in tragedy with innocent bystanders being struck by the gunfire so we as a community should count our blessings and consider ourselves lucky.  But why the violence? What could possibly have driven matters to such a senseless conclusion?

I wrote a few days ago about my life behind the crime scene line while taking a look back at this year's events.  It is sad that I find myself yet again behind the crime scene tape for some senseless act.  I won't debate the gun control issue, whether it could have made a difference here, in Connecticut, Stockton or any of the other cities beset with acts of terror and murder with a gun.  As long as there are people with a lack of moral character, hatred and no sense of right and wrong there will violence.  It seems like sometimes all we can do is just ask why and mourn our losses.  Maybe part of the why is to realize how precious life is and not take any of it for granted and to join together as communities across this nation to rise against the tide of hate and anger that drives these actions.

I don't think we will never know why to any of the answers, even if we do the answer will fall far short of easing our pain and grief.  I just hope for a time where we never have to ask that question again.

Hard news

I can't remember a month that has had this many spot news events take place.  Every time my phone rings in the middle of the night my first thought is who died?

Todays spot news extravaganza had me at the Delta Mendota Canal early in the day to photograph the search for a missing Swedish man believed to have been drowned in a car accident when a driver racing on a Tracy Municipal Airport runway careened through a chain link fence and plunged into the canal.

After finishing the photos and just about to unwrap my sandwich for lunch when I had to go to the scene of a shooting on Tracy Boulevard where a man was found shot in the neck during an apparent drive-by shooting.

You got to love it, it's always a party in Tracy.