I hiked the Rimrock trail from the western trailhead off 4635-146 yesterday.  When I got out of my truck, I smelled something smoky.  When I looked across the road, there is a campsite there and the fire pit was smoldering.  I went over to check it out and whoever had camped there had not put out their fire before leaving.  It appeared to have been smoldering for a while, and was a couple feet outside of the fire ring.

I did the best I could to put it out, using all the water I had.  I even went down to the swampy area near the trailhead to see if I could get more water but it was pretty much dried up.  I did the best I could to put it out and then headed out.  On my way back home I stopped at the Ripplebrook store and told them about it and they called and I talked to someone about it.  They said they would send someone out to investigate it.  I told them it probably needed someone with more water than I had.  Since it is now raining up there today it is probably fine, but I would hate for that to have gotten out of hand.

Secondly, while I was up on the overlook, I saw this strange plume to the West/Southwest (it is a grainy photo since I zoomed in):

When I got home I looked for any fires in that general vicinity and found none.  But it sure looked like a forest fire to me.

Be careful with fire out in the woods....