We had thunderstorms come thru Seeley Lake last night. Sitting at home i noticed smoke north of the field. So I fired up the camera and off we went. This video was taken less than an hour after the fire started.

That was pretty neat. Too bad about the fire but you got some good video.

Lousy fire but interesting camera action.

Nice soft field technique.

Bonanzas do fine off smooth grass. Many operators won't do anything more 'scary' than 3,000' of grass and miss out.

Wow! That fire was ripping! Nice video. I hate seeing the fire season spooling up.

I liked the low ground effect takeoff, even while raising the gear. Good job.

Please do not do what this guy did. There may not be a TFR up yet for a new fire, but you can bet there will be firefighting aircraft responding shortly. It usually takes about a half a day to get a TFR ordered and in place in the NOTAM system.

When we arrive on a fire we are focused on the job of putting out the fire. Looking for lookie loo aircraft, that are not on the fire frequency, is not our first thought. Please don't make our job any harder by loitering near wildfires. Please do report new fires to FSS.

Having flown smokejumpers for the USFS as well as worked the ground for 6 seasons, I get what your saying here and agree this is good practice. However, until the TFR is issued, aircraft involved in fire fighting efforts still have the responsibility to make position reports on local frequencies as well as see and avoid.

Be safe out there. Looks like it will be a busy fall.

Too bad you didn't have a bucket of water to help kickstart the fire fighting effort. Coming back from SE Oregon after a week of camping all of my gear smells like smoke, and my route home had to be changed several times because of TFRs and smokey conditions. 3 major fires are raging on the east side of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington plus LOTS of smaller fires in both states. It is not looking like a good year to be a tree!