this is a shot of the wildfire just on the outside of Colorado Springs yesterday. It was taken right about when the wind turned the whole thing into an enormous firestorm. It was later afternoon, and the sun was behind the smoke, casting these odd rays of light through it and making the plume glow in all these odd orange colors. the sky got dim, like it was sunset. And all over the mountain were these snakes of dirty orange flame, shooting up fifty feet or more into the air. the mountain was glowing like there was lava on it. How can something so pretty be so terrible at the same time. really, these pictures didn't capture the colors as well as I had hopes. I don't think anything could.

You can see the flames in the center of the picture here. that patch is about the size of a city block. I'd say we were about four miles away from the fire? that's about when we decided to go home and hide.