Yesterday was another day in a long stretch of very hot days in our corner of the world. On top of that, it was an incredibly busy one for me, and one in which I worked outdoors quite a bit. Even after a long, hot day, I still needed to shoot, but my final item was the cover story for Ada Magazine, which Abby wanted to shoot, of David and Markie Martin. David has been a pilot since 1982, and Markie got her pilot certificate last year. Abby and I had a great time shooting, and it’s always great to have her work for me.

The middle part of the day was the most stressful. Just as I was heading out the door to go home and grab a camera for my three o’clock assignment, I heard dispatch page Byng Fire Department on a wildfire in the area of Catfish Kettle Road. As I drove toward home, they kept saying our address, although they also kept talking about fire in the woods. By the time I actually got home, I could see the woods behind our back pasture on fire, and just one brush unit on the scene to fight it. I pulled in and made some images, then as more fire fighting units arrived, I opened the RV and cranked up the air conditioner so they could cool off in there if they needed it (it turned out that they did.) They set up their incident command in our driveway, and called four other fire departments for assistance.

By the end of the day, they had it knocked down, and in the evening one of the brush trucks rumbled in again to check for hot spots. One of the guys speculated it may have started from lightning the night before.

Finally, by noon today a broad area of thunderstorms blanketed Oklahoma, the first significant rainfall we’ve had since May.