Fire Spotters
Yesterday I flew from the mountains to the sea and back again. I was up over Lake Almanor when I heard a fellow pilot over the radio. She was describing the location of a fire in the forest east of Lake Oroville to the air traffic controller. He said he would send the information down the line. As I crossed the area a few minutes later, I could see the smoke plume rising from the green forest. This morning, there it was, on the front page of the ER. Pilots of small planes are often the first to see and report fires.