Does Smoke Always Rise?

Although we had a nonsmoking room in a hall of nonsmoking rooms at the motel, smoke odors would waft in through the a/c, or the walls, or the balcony door. We found out where it was coming from at the same time that we took the picture on the left. Sitting on her balcony right above ours, was a woman taking a smoke. Harmless if it's out of doors? Not unless a 20-mile-per-hour wind is blowing. We didn't investigate to see whether the top floor was a nonsmoking floor or not. But the tobbaco smoke sure spoiled what was otherwise a pretty nice room. But, those concerns seem a bit trivial when other kinds of smoke are considered.

Now, the smell of smoke would be of a much more serious nature, because of the forest fires. Yesterday, more than 10 fires were burning within 40 miles of Salmon, and due to rugged terrain, it was difficult to gain access to fight those fires. We hope for the sake of the people in Salmon, that the fires come no closer. On the way to Salmon, our earlier crossing of the Bitterroot Mountains went through the path of forest fires that were billowing smoke down on Hamilton, Montana in the Bitteroot Valley. It's so sad for us to see on the news, the devistation of these beautiful areas that we had just traveled through. One fire was 3 miles from Hamilton, and another was 40 miles from there.

If you're interested in checking the current status of forest fires, check out the Incident Management Situation Report - National Preparedness Level V. This report lists the fires or groups of fires by region, and tells the status of each. Just use Edit | Find On This Page on your browser menu to find out about fires in the area of interest. Go to the bottom of this page and look at the chart that gives an idea of the amount of resources that are expended to control these fires. This page is updated daily.

Rested and ready to go again, we followed the Salmon River south. The Salmon River has its source somewhere high in the Sawtooth Mountains, the direction we are headed.