Fire Update

Since many of you have been concerned enough to ask about my situation, and it's an easy way to fill a blog post, I figured I'd bring you up to speed.

As of 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, the Airport Road Fire is slightly over 6,800 acres burned, 45% contained and has not increased in size since Sunday evening.

Good news: the fire hasn't spread.

Bad news: it isn't going anywhere, either. Swamp fires (not to be confused with Fire Swamps) are nasty because, once lit, the peat can smolder for months (or longer) in a manner similar to that of a coal fire. This makes them the first known form of spawn campers.

Heavy smoke continues to blanket the entire region today. The thick smoke is from the wildfires in north central Florida as well as the fires in southern Georgia.

So every time I step outside, I'm smoking a state or two. Whee. Anyone know what the estimated secondhand smoke damage is for that kind of volume?

Oh, yeah, and I'm allergic to most of the plants that are on fire. The last time this happened back in 1998, I had some nasty reaction to it (I don't know if it was from the smoke inhalation or from the allergens, maybe both) where I started coughing and wasn't able to stop until I passed out. One ambulance ride later, I'm sucking down pure O2 for the next day or so.

Smoke is being blown around the sub tropical storm off shore and affecting Flagler County and surrounding areas.

The Tropical Prediction Center has issued a Tropical Storm Watch from Flagler Beach northward effective today at 11:00 AM.A Tropical Storm Watch means that sustained winds greater than 39 mph are possible with in the next 36 hours. It should be noted that this is a weak system and the primary concerns will apply to marine and nautical interests. However residents should be aware of the latest bulletins from the National Weather Service.

For those who don't speak the lingo, the progression goes: a tropical depression can become a tropical storm which can become a hurricane. So yes, there's a proto-hurricane forming in the Atlantic, and hurricane season isn't set to start until June 1.

Now, given the choice between a storm and a fire, I'll take the storm any day, because I can see them coming days away. (I have yet to have a hurricane successfully sneak up on me.) And the intense rains that come with these critters will certainly help put out the fires. I'm just uncomfortable being caught between Scylla and Charybdis.

More updates as they occur.