Tahoe On Fire

As you may know, the forests around Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada, have been on fire for several days now. The good folks at SFist are reminded of a fire in that very area, chronicled (read: 'exaggerated') and possibly even started by Mark Twain:

Within half an hour all before us was a tossing, blinding tempest of flame! It went surging up adjacent ridges—surmounted them and disappeared in the canons beyond—burst into view upon higher and farther ridges, presently—shed a grander illumination abroad, and dove again—flamed out again, directly, higher and still higher up the mountain-side- -threw out skirmishing parties of fire here and there, and sent them trailing their crimson spirals away among remote ramparts and ribs and gorges, till as far as the eye could reach the lofty mountain-fronts were webbed as it were with a tangled network of red lava streams. Away across the water the crags and domes were lit with a ruddy glare, and the firmament above was a reflected hell!

Every feature of the spectacle was repeated in the glowing mirror of the lake! Both pictures were sublime, both were beautiful; but that in the lake had a bewildering richness about it that enchanted the eye and held it with the stronger fascination.

We sat absorbed and motionless through four long hours. We never thought of supper, and never felt fatigue. But at eleven o'clock the conflagration had traveled beyond our range of vision, and then darkness stole down upon the landscape again.

Fuller excerpt at SFist. A friend of the Hired Hand is a crew member of the only ship ('helicopter,' for you Philistines) in the entire National Forest Service arsenal that is licensed to do "free drops" (aka sliding down a rope, unharnessed) onto the forest floor. Wishing him the best of luck.