Martin Mars at work

**goshad** · 08-07-2003, 05:11 AM

As some of you may know the pacific North West, -- Washington, Montana, Alberta and British Columbia has been an active forest fire area the past month or so.
While returning home last week I heard a deep throated rumble coming from the direction of a small lake near my house, hopped off my bicycle, grabbed my camera outta the back pack, just in time to catch these. -- Location: Victoria, BC -- Vancouver Island.

**GreenMachine** · 08-07-2003, 09:58 AM

[center]Cool shots,I live in Victoria too:) That was last Sunday right? I saw them too when we were going out for dinner.

**goshad** · 08-07-2003, 10:16 AM

>[center]Cool shots,I live in Victoria too:) That was last
>Sunday right? I saw them too when we were going out for
>dinner.

Actually it was about 6pm last Thursday -- when the fire started at Thetis Lake(i live about a 20 min. walk from thetis) -- the shots were taken from the Costco parking lot. I missed a couple of good opportunities. One of them flew directly overhead, unfortunately when peddling a bike, with cars on 3 sides it was kind of hard to snap a pic *grin* .. and so low and slow i could have counted the stubble on the pilots chin. --- amazing piece of machinery to watch in action. **chuckling** and ive spent the past week trying to find FS2002 model of the mars.. so far no luck..

-- From an Island Somewhere in the Pacific --

**FlyINN2** · 08-07-2003, 10:31 AM

Interesting shots - my family was on holiday vacation to Southern France last 2 weeks and they saw lots of fireplanes landing and taking off in front of the beaches...

**Andrew_FFG** · 08-07-2003, 12:43 PM

Yes cool shots, but it's really sad. I just got back from Montana where my family goes every one or two years. This year it's VERY dry. I was there 3 years ago too when the state was declared a disaster area. These fires are dangerous and pretty scary when they're close. This year (which isn't bad at all compared to three years ago) a fire started up 30 miles away from us and the smoke filled the entire sky within about 30 minutes. The fire had burned 10,000 acres in one day and was still considered a low priority fire (I shudder at the thought of a high priority fire.) It's scary when the sun turns dark red and there's ash falling out of the sky! I felt like I was in a volcanic eruption or something. I guess those fire bans are in effect for good reason.

-Andrew