This afternoon a huge column of smoke rose up that looked like a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion. I could see it from Moab and was going to go look at the location of the Slickrock Trailhead. The smoke was further away from Moab than was Slickrock, and I was curious, so I headed towards the column of smoke.
I passed ‘Chris’ in her Sheriff’s Jeep on the way out and she said that she had heard the call for the fire on the radio around 3:30. I had spotted it about 30 minutes after it had been seen.
I ended up an estimated 3500 feet from where the fire was moving southbound along the southeastern rim of Castle Valley, at an area called ‘Porcupine Draw’.
Higher elevation winds moved the smoke south towards Grand View and La Sal Peak. At where I was I could feel the air being drawn towards the fire. The Sheriff closed Sand Flats Road at the eastern edge of the Sand Flats Recreation Area while I was near the fire. The La Sal Mountain Loop Road was already closed. From what I have heard it could have been caused by the lightning last night. I was in the area around 1pm and there was no fire – I don’t know how long a lightning strike takes to become a big a fire as this, I’m just relaying what I heard.
The first four pictures are from 4:23pm to 5 pm Mountain Time. The fifth was taken about 7:20pm and the sixth was taken about 8:20pm.
