I have good pilot friends who understand me and my love of aviation. They know that I will never be a licensed pilot and take me on "sight seeing" flights as schedules allow. Meaning when the weekend weather cooperates. This past weekend, we had two good days, so I was able to go flying on Sunday afternoon, April 7th.
It was a great day for flying, and there were a lot of folk who were also in the air. We flew the Pine Barrens, and flew over a portion of the burn scar from the Spring Hill Fire. Recall this
article by Stephen Stirling of New Jersey Advanced Media showing some before and after satellite imagery of the Spring Hill Fire burn scar. He reported on what Larry Hajna of the NJ DEP said about the veins of green trees that you see in the three of the four photos:
“The long, thin ribbons of trees result from a phenomenon called horizontal roll vortices,” said Hajna. “Basically, these tornadic winds move upward and it kind of does a wave and creates an air pocket that is cooler than the surrounding environment. And it leaves a strip of unburned trees and leaves a path that indicates the direction.”
These thin ribbons of trees are especially pronounced in this first photo. please excuse the poor quality of the photograph. Taking pictures out of the window of an airplane is sometimes challenging and I had to retouch the photograph.
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| Spring Hill Fire burn scar, photographed on April 7, 2019 |
The next two photos are taken when we are near Coyle Field. Coyle Field is owned by the NJ Forest Fire Service. Route 72 where NJ Forest Fire Service ground crews did burn out operations runs adjacent to Coyle Field (barely visible in the second photo).
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| Spring Hill Fire burn scar, Coyle Field (NJFFS) photographed on April 7, 2019 |
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| Spring Hill Fire burn scar, Coyle Field (NJFFS) photographed on April 7, 2019 |
This last photograph is taken somewhere over the Spring Hill Burn scar. Again the photo quality is not the greatest. But it does show the burned area.
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| Spring Hill Fire burn scar, photographed on April 7, 2019 |
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