I'm Uncle Sam, that's who I am... been hidin' out in a RockRoll Band.

July 7, 2008, about 10:15 pm...

"Fire.... fire on the mountain..." (ok, ok... its a Grateful Dead kind of night).

On the way home through Carmel Valley Village, feeling pretty good after the announcement that Big Sur residents are authorized to return to their homes. 

I got so excited about that news, I forgot a salient point brought up by Mike Dietrich and that is that: the fire moved east during the day, above the Tassajara Creek drainage area and into the area around Uncle Sam Mountain. Incident Command continues to monitor the weather while striving to secure the area around Devil’s Mountain, in order to "close the door" at the north and northeast. The northeast advance of the fire is not yet controlled, let alone contained. 

I instinctively look toward my favorite "telltale" picture spot, near Stonepine, looking toward Elephant and Uncle Sam Mountain. 

To my horror, I see open flames and a red glow in the sky. All I have is my iPhone, with it's built-in camera, which is not good enough on it's own to take a night picture. I get no image at my favorite spot, so I decide to drive up to Sky Ranch and see if I can get a better view.

Finally, I arrive at the Sky Ranch entrance gate, and the fire is raging, but the iPhone camera gets nothing. Then, I realize that I have a pair of binoculars in the car.

I position the iPhone lens behind the right ocular and take a few shots, as I try sighting the fire with the left.

I suppose it was better than nothing... here's a shot of flames up on the ridge toward Uncle Sam Mountain, at a bearing of about 258 degrees, taken from the turnout just past the Sky Ranch entrance at the top of Cachagua Grade.