[The KG9 Kid]

"... Been on the Rim of the World drive many times and if the fire goes over the cliff will it burn down the mountainside into the towns below?"

Don't mean to sound like a wiseacre here, but fire burns up.

It's already been burning up for the last couple of days. The mountainside below 'Rim Of The World' is already burnt to the dirt. What we're worried about is the large mountain communities I named earlier on top of the mountain that are heavily-wooded with trees that will go up like matchsticks if the fire gets across the road.

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for answering! I didn't consider it being a wiseacre -- I was just curious because I heard one of the reporters say that the fire could burn down the mountainside and I wasn't sure about that.

[.38sw]

Fire CAN burn downhill under some conditions. I've seen it do so at night when the humidity was very low. During the day, the air flows upslope, kind of like a chimney effect. At night, the process reverses as the air cools. Normally, as the air cools, the humidity rises, and the fire will "lay down" at night, so you won't see it burning too actively. However, under very dry conditions, it can burn downhill.