Where There's Smoke...

As I drove over to Santa Fe yesterday at about 2 p.m. from my home here in The Original Las Vegas, N.M., I saw a smoke plume over the mountains, and figured it was a remnant of a small fire last week.

As I went about the day the plume -- drifting toward Santa Fe from the Jemez Mountains to the west -- grew larger and darker, but still no big deal. I spent from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. indoors, and when I came out I knew the fire was definitely a big deal. The smoke had completely obliterated the sun, and caused what felt like a 10-degree drop in temperature from the low 90s to the low 80s.

That fire, as I reported today, has become a really big deal, with 60 mile an hour winds turning it into a beast whose size jumped from 6,000 acres to 43,000 acres overnight, licking at the edges of Los Alamos National Laboratory and causing a mandatory evacuation of the city and county of Los Alamos.

Fire crews from a bunch of agencies are battling this monster, but please, we could use a really successful rain dance.