Fire . . .

View from my deck at 4 a.m.



 

From my driveway

During one of the hottest weeks I remember we got some added heat to our lives.  Monday night there was a dry lightning storm that started a fire.  The wind was blowing so hard that night with gusts of 50-60 mph.  The fire traveled about 5 miles that night growing, spreading, jumping, and skipping.  It crossed the river and kept on coming kind of dividing into two separate fires.  That was a little scary as it was rolling along very fast.  The road below us was closed to go further up the canyon.  Many of us had short nights as we figured out what all needed done and what our best plan for dealing with the approaching fire was.  We ended up taking up some fence that we had been planning to rip out sometime this summer but not this week, in order that we could bulldoze the huge sage that was in the fence line. 


The fire grew rapidly and was over 50,000 acres and 0% contained 36 hours after starting.  The weather was not helping either as the high on Tuesday was 111.   The fire fighters started showing up on Wednesday morning.  The weather was miserably hot!  And the fire just kept growing.  As locals we had been up at 4 or us most of the night and we were all tired.  Our ditch rider had spent the night in his truck and was waking people up at 4 when the wind picked up and the fire was making huge headway down the hill and we all wondered if our neighbors house would make it through the fire.  It did.  We all made it though the fire.  The crews had the fire contained by Wednesday evening.  What a nice relief to know when the fire was no longer raging. 

 

 A couple of neighbors had packed up their valuables in their trucks.  I packed a suitcase.  It is hard to know what to think about this sort of thing.   What do you  take?  What do you leave?  How much time do you have?  Will the fire really make it here? Makes you really realize that things really are so temporal.  We can not take them with us.  If I had my family with me, I would have all that was important.  All that really mattered.  Yes, I have some important things in my house.  Some irreplaceable.  Some valuable.  Some worthless. Some treasure memories. But my family is what is important and that is my greatest treasure.