Ahh, the smell of burning pine trees.....

Well, if you remember, we had a major forest fire near us last year.
Well, on the way home from some shopping today, we saw quite a bit of
smoke by Fort Dix. As we got closer to home, we saw the road to Barnegat
off of Rt 72 was shut down by fire department people and could see smoke
and biplanes circling the area. The Scrubby Pines campground on Rt 72
was being evacuated as we drove past it (less than 5 miles from our
house). As I sit here writing this, I can hear the biplanes making loops
over the area every few minutes. This fire is maybe 10 miles from our
neighborhood.

The good news is the wind is blowing (slowly) north-northwest, so the
fire is being blown away from us. There is no smoke in our area and it
looks like we should get some light rain later tonight. According to the
news reports the fire is more or less under control and they expect it
to be out by tomorrow sometime.

I'm not all that worried about this one, but will definitely be keeping
an eye on the news.....