Aerial views of wildfire aftermath
Category: Local...
Posted Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 02:27 PM [GMT-6]

Last week's wildfire could have caused so much more damage than it did. Mother Nature, human intervention, and some well-placed lease roads brought the fire to a halt before it encroached on any neighborhoods, but as you can see by photos below, it came close.

Mark Springer forwarded these photos to me, and he's trying to learn the identity of the photographer so we can give them proper attribution. If you know who took them, please let me know.

For what it's worth, our new neighborhood is just outside the frame of the first photo, to the right (which is west, as this perspective looks southward, toward downtown Midland), approximately even with Midland Country Club. Click on the photo to see some labels on a bigger version.

The next photo seems to show the origin of the fire, and the resulting "plume," as it spread to over 9,000 acres in a matter of hours. George, over at Sleepless in Midland, did a good job of summarizing the event.