When there's smoke, somewhere there's fire

Summertime on the Front Range in Colorado brings garden produce, colorful flowers, pleasant evening breezes -- and wildfires. While our Abbey is not itself in any danger from fire at the moment, we follow with concern the large fires raging in several places in our state, and throughout the arid West.

The one closest to us is the Beaver Creek fire on the border of Colorado and Wyoming, northwest of our location. It currently affects more that 20,000 acres of forest, and is being fueled by deadwood from trees killed by the pine bark beetle infestations of recent years. When the wind, temperature, and humidity are just right (or just wrong, perhaps), smoke drifts in our direction, a pervasive haze that hovers over the valley and makes for dramatic red sunsets.

Another fire, dubbed Cold Springs, is burning in the mountains 10 miles west of our old hometown of  Boulder, Colorado. Several residences have been destroyed by that blaze -- by God's grace, no one has been injured.

We join with all our neighbors in praying for the safety of the firefighters, and that rain may soon come to their aid in controlling these blazes.