There goes the neighbourhood
May. 16th, 2011 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgAs I left Sector 7 to go for a walk this afternoon (I went for a walk!), I saw an interesting cloud and thought someone must be enjoying some rain.
I was struck by the colouring; surely clouds shaped like this one are supposed to be white and fluffy, at least on top?
As I went around the corner I saw new and exciting views of the sky, and thought it might be an idea to go home and grab the camera and some fresh batteries. Because this is what I saw:
Ah. Mushroom cloud. That would explain the funny colour. It didn't hold its shape for very long as the wind at altitude got to it, but eventually the sun kicked in with some highlights:
It was a fire (presumably not of the nuclear fission variety) somewhere that's-quite-close-enough-thank-you. The sun eventually picked out some smoke-appropriate colours:
...
I've just spent a depressingly long time trying to locate that fire on the Internet. Silly me tried fire and emergency services, who offered plenty of options for looking elsewhere. (I've long-since abandoned google news search to find local fires, even when they come with media releases). I had to guess that this particular fire was a prescribed burn in the Gnangara pine plantation (10km E of Wannaroo) to find that very information. Good thing I was able to guess that much. Not much help on the OMG Something's Burning Just To The NorthWest Of Me But I Don't Know How Close It Is Oh Internet Please Help Me front :-(
Nothing turned up on a search of the local council site.
I wasn't personally experiencing any OMG-like feelings while looking for this information; I was merely curious after the event. However, add any kind of emotional edge to that search and I'm sure plenty of frightened, local-knowledge-deficient and/or public-spirited people would have phoned inappropriate numbers and tied up actual emergency resources trying to find critical information in a hurry.
/rant
It will probably come as no surprise that I used to do psychology research on emergency response training. It would appear that I still care about how people think under stress.
I was struck by the colouring; surely clouds shaped like this one are supposed to be white and fluffy, at least on top?
As I went around the corner I saw new and exciting views of the sky, and thought it might be an idea to go home and grab the camera and some fresh batteries. Because this is what I saw:
Ah. Mushroom cloud. That would explain the funny colour. It didn't hold its shape for very long as the wind at altitude got to it, but eventually the sun kicked in with some highlights:
It was a fire (presumably not of the nuclear fission variety) somewhere that's-quite-close-enough-thank-you. The sun eventually picked out some smoke-appropriate colours:
...
I've just spent a depressingly long time trying to locate that fire on the Internet. Silly me tried fire and emergency services, who offered plenty of options for looking elsewhere. (I've long-since abandoned google news search to find local fires, even when they come with media releases). I had to guess that this particular fire was a prescribed burn in the Gnangara pine plantation (10km E of Wannaroo) to find that very information. Good thing I was able to guess that much. Not much help on the OMG Something's Burning Just To The NorthWest Of Me But I Don't Know How Close It Is Oh Internet Please Help Me front :-(
Nothing turned up on a search of the local council site.
I wasn't personally experiencing any OMG-like feelings while looking for this information; I was merely curious after the event. However, add any kind of emotional edge to that search and I'm sure plenty of frightened, local-knowledge-deficient and/or public-spirited people would have phoned inappropriate numbers and tied up actual emergency resources trying to find critical information in a hurry.
/rant
It will probably come as no surprise that I used to do psychology research on emergency response training. It would appear that I still care about how people think under stress.
