By Ted Grussing
… I had a fabulous flight this morning even though the air quality was more than suspect. The Coldwater Fire was started by lightning on May 30th and the USFS is conducting burnouts to stop the spread. Not sure if they are managing the fire which means they are expanding the size of the fire or if they are simply suppressing the fire which is more than likely what they are doing with this one. The fire is located NE of Flagstaff and east of Sunset Crater. In any event the smoke comes SW in the evening and morning hours and then the reversal of the airflow which takes place around 10A then drives the smoke back to the NE … so day after day it comes down to Sedona, the Verde Valley and more, goes back from whence it comes and then in the evening comes back down again. I would also imagine that every day we get more smoke than the day before because it never really clears the area.
There appears to be another fire somewhere out around Payson and that smoke comes down the valleys from the east and enters the Verde Valley too.
Photo 01 [above] is an image of the fire area and I think the road in the lower right of the image is Leupp Road and I am looking towards the NE.
Photo 02 is an image of The Village of Oak Creek and beyond. The road in the lower left is I-17. Woods Canyon and Jacks Canyon are in the foreground.
Photo 03 is looking pretty much to the east and Payson. The smoke is extremely dense in the Payson area and you can see how the smoke fills all the canyons as it drains into the Verde Valley.
This is not healthy air to breathe and as far as I could see in every direction there was this smoke haze … conservatively there are at least 5,000 square miles blanketed with this health hazard.
Into the weekend for me and I’ll be back Monday morning … if you go out in this stuff, please wear the mask that I did not as it is better for your health … breathing is such and incredible thing to do!
Cheers
Ted
For life holds cheers as well as tears,
Take this old toast from me:
This world a riddle hard you call …
A mess from which you fain would shrink?
Perhaps ’tis wisdom, all in all.
To learn to laugh as well as think.
— Max Ehrmann
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The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com
In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.
Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses. By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.
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