I saw one of these air cranes fly over today:

**Image removed due to copyright compaint**



Map of smoke from wildfires, August 23, 2011




Wildfire activity is increasing in Montana and Idaho. The Northern Rockies and Eastern Great Basin Geographic Areas have a total of 16 large fires listed on today’s Incident Management Situation Report. The entire map can be seen here.



On Monday the Saddle Complex in northeastern Idaho (#6 on the map) grew from about 1,000 to 18,275 acres, crossing the Idaho-Montana state line. The Phoenix National Incident Management Organization Team is en route to help manage this fire and others on the Salmon-Challis National Forest.

So far, we have been lucky here, knock on wood, no fires in the area.