🔥🔥🔥
Last Sunday Buck's family was going to
come over for Sunday dinner. But before that time came, instead a sky
full of fast moving orange and ashy smoke came tumbling over our
homes. I instantly knew the fire was too close. I felt like we needed to
prepare the kids to evacuate. And then I started getting all the
texts from neighbors about it. And sure enough, evacuation was
coming.
“Hey Jan and Dennis.... change of
plans... can we come to your house for dinner and like, the night?”
Buck and I stayed so calm and did our
best not to worry the kids. But it didn't matter. Sure, we were calm
but outside the sky was gone and gobbled up by a choking smoke with
ash that got in our eyes. Helicopters chopped the air around us as
they raced to dip their large buckets into the lake right in front of
our house, and sirens continually echoed through the neighborhood.
They felt that stress and urgency. I told them just to grab a few
things to sleep with for the night. Next thing I know there's a
whirlwind of Hazel piling up a mountain higher than herself of all
her belongings, sobbing with fear, exclaiming, “Everything is too
special to me! I don't want it to burn!” June was upstairs with a
permanent marker, writing the names of her rats on my nice
Tupperware. Rose was clinging to me fearfully, “Mommy, I'm so
scared!” Haben was up at a friends in SLC so she missed it all but
poor Winta was in her room packing both of their bags with all of
their clothing they own, English homework, stuffed animals and
special mementos. I don't even know where Buck was, except for the
time he came and set a painting on the counter that he wanted to take
with us.
“Girls, our house is really going to
be okay. We just need to leave because the smoke is not good to
breathe and so that we are out of the way of the firemen.” It appeared that had calmed them down and they seemed more reasonable.
The first wave of evacuations had just cleared out and it
was moments before the fire jumped the road and went roaring across
the dry hills that surround many large neighborhoods. We got everyone in the truck and the
mini van, including two cats and two rats, and we headed out,
thankfully in that small window of time when the traffic wasn't as
gridlocked.
As we were unpacking at my in laws later on it
was clear that my girls had not totally calmed down. Thrown in the
back of the truck were loose necklaces, pencils, a wooden “J”
that had been painted and glued seashells on it, 534 stuffed animals
and blankets, and framed art. Winta had thrown in even more of their
clothes as well.I really wish I had gotten a photo of it all.
We all crashed, exhausted. We ended up
staying the night there.
The fire still burned but it had been
contained more. And miraculously the AMAZING firefighters had saved
all the homes except one that was alone out in the fields. Truly a
miracle! You can see in the photos how the fire came right up to the yards!
Monday morning we were able to come home. And then I was completely useless the rest of the day. Buck
was feeling it too. I think that something like evacuations really
take a mental toll and you don't realize it until your body and mind
are able to settle. And then? You become useless for a day or so. But mostly just grateful that it wasn't anything worse. 💛
The first couple of photos are mine from when the smoke first started but after that I borrowed the other photos from various people in the neighborhood. (because I had too many humans and animals to manage and couldn't manage being a photographer as well haha)
A couple photos from the other side of the lake
Aftermath
A neat post someone wrote.
So, 2020, what's next?!
4 comments:
Pretty sure you’re allowed to do nothing for a day or two after an experience like that. ;-) Love that quote at the end. It’s pretty amazing that between those two raging fires that weekend, only one structure was lost. Glad to know your 532 stuffed animals would have been safe though. 🤣
I'm so glad you are all okay and that your house is too! I think I would have been useless the next day too. I always stay calm in a crisis and then kind of lose it after everything is okay! Reading this reminded me of a few times when I was a little girl and we had huge thunderstorms and I had all my stuffed animals piled up downstairs, ready to grab them all and run out the door if the house got hit by lightning! (I think my anxiety was triggered by the fact that my grandparents' house had caught on fire and they think it was because it was hit by lightning.) Glad this turned out so well, but so sorry for the owners of the one house that burned!!
Yes you were blessed in so many ways. I wish you had taken a picture of all the stuff you put in your car for posterity but that’s OK. Before even reading the description of the miracle at the end of your post I already felt exactly the same thoughts. Saratoga springs was watched over and protected that day in so many ways as well as those from the other fire across the valley the day before. I have always wondered what I would do in an emergency like that and I think I would be pretty panicked myself.
2020, the craziest year! I'm glad the fire damage was minimal. How scary!
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