The little town of South Fork, on the west side of the San Luis Valley, was under the gun this morning from a complex of three merging wildfires called the West Fork Complex. Prospects were grim and the town was evacuated. Suddenly, a midafternoon change in the firmament merged smoke and cloud into changing winds and a cooling bubble through which the ruddy sun tried to poke. By the time it was viewed in La Veta it had joined with smoke from the Santa Fe-Pecos complex and our own East Peak smoke to form a bubbly, convective mass. For the time being little South Fork is being defended.

Unknown to me, while taking this picture a doe was birthing twins a few feet away, around the corner of the house. I can only surmise that she invoked a treaty against the multivariate flames to bring a tiny peace to the kingdom.