The Summer was hot and dry.

The sun was implacable.

Not a little distraction would be gone without being noticed by it and light up into a fire.

The mountain tops were ablaze. Sometimes closing in to residential areas, forcing people to evacuate from their own houses.

As the flames leapt skyward, the quality of the air became very poor. Smog was everywhere. It was hard to breath. Cough and teary eyes became a very common thing.

But the sun would still not give us a break.

Everyday. Almost day and night (can 4 am to 10 pm be considered day and night?).

In all its magnificence!

This post was written in response to the Literary Lion: Sun writing challenge, from about a month ago, but for some reason I never published it.

Then, seeing it today I decided to modify it a little bit as to make it also fit for this week’s 100WCGU., in regards to length and also to incorporate the phrase “as the flames leapt skyward”. 

The picture was taken during a road trip through Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana, in Summer, where and when wild fires were burning the mountains and generating a lot of smoke. This one was taken in Missoula, Montana, close to our campground.