FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!!!!!!!!

JUNE 22, 2012:  We had quite the exciting weekend. A Fire was started on our hillside on Thurs. afternoon, June 21.  We watched it late that evening coming down our mountain.  It was really cool looking at night.  I had a nightmare that we were evacuated that kept me up during the night. By Friday morning this was the view from my driveway.

I felt really nervous and scared and called Justin at work and asked him to come home.  My mother-in-law, Jeanne, had just arrived bringing the boys home from a sleep over.  Justin came home and stopped to pick up the van on his way in case of an evacuation.  Jensen was really scared, Drew and Breck didnt really care.  By the time Justin got home this billowing black smoke had changed direction and it was just little white smoke as if it was clearing up.  We drove a couple streets up to where our friends and ward members live. Just to see what was going on.

Scary!!!! the wind had shifted again and we saw this 6 ft wall of fire.  Fire trucks were telling people to get out.  People were flooding out of their houses, grabbing whatever they could.  Every car that passed was full of belongings.  Justin tried to see if he could help and they were just saying, "get out, get out now"!

As Justin was out of the car seeing how he could help, I took this picture.  This little girl was running to her car with her lamp and her doll.  Her mom followed carring their dogs. People in the background were loading their car and seriously everyone was fleeing off of this street.

I felt like the scene was a war scene.  There were like 3 of these planes flying over our house.  They were dropping fire retardant. Like 3 helicopters were also flying over spraying water on the fire. People were all out of there houses and loading there cars, trailers, vans, etc.  Police and fire trucks were everywhere.  Like 5 police cars zoomed up my street going like 70 and the last one stopped and said there is a mandatory evacuation, he was going higher to tell the houses closer to the fire, but told us to tell everyone around here.  We were knocking on doors and telling the neighbors. the police were knocking on doors and telling people they had 15 min. Another police car was patrolling the streets with a consistant on beep siren telling all to evacuate.

We watched this helicopter dip in the lake and suck up a tank of water and then fly right over our house and go spray it on the fire.  I felt so fortunate to live by the lake and have quick access to the water.  They were also loading tankers with water in as well as diggers to try and dig like a fire ditch.

After we were racing through the house grabbing what we could, scrapbooks, pictures, special notes and schoolwork, bills, important files, the wind had again shifted and it looked as if we would be fine.  Then I went back through the house and packed some bags of clothes and grabbed some other things.  Then we just kinda sat out on the driveway with some of our neighbors wondering what is next.  Then another police came by and said, "This is a mandatory evacuation (around 1 pm), you need to leave now." So we got in the car and headed to Artic Circle for lunch. (really rough, :))  We spent the rest of the day at the Smiths house watching the news and playing.  We were told were would not be able to return Friday night. We spent the night at my parents and had a co ed softball tournament all Sat.  We kept looking up the news on the internet and were officially told we could return  to our homes around 5 pm. Sat. night.  We of course were still playing in a tournament so we didnt get home till around 11 pm....completely exhauseted!

We had church at 9 am the next morning.  They had considered cancelling it but decided to hold sacrament meeting.  Our Stake Pres. came and spoke humbly and sweetly to us.  Grateful that we and our homes are all ok.  Talked about how the church has been so wonderful in providing all the supplies at the high school and how the Brethren are very aware of us, through the chain of command.  He was in constant contact from our bishop to the area 70, to the quorum of the 70, to the brethren.  He said he know our prayers are what saved our house and how exhausted and frazzled we must all feel, and yet we all came to church, did what is right.  It was cool.  (I have to admit that I probably would not have been to church if it wasnt for my wonderful husband. I WAS exhausted and frazzled, we were all filthy and I just couldnt get up early and bathe the whole house and get to church by 9 am. I suggested going to a later ward but we ended up going to our ward and it was cool.)  After thinking we only had sacrament meeting, they did have all 3 blocks, but the majority of church was spent talking about the fire.  It was cool how everyone had different stories and perspectives.  It was a good "fire drill" for me on how I can prepare better for this type of situation.
     Sunday evening we drove the route of the fire to see all the damage and how much closer it got when we left.  In the pictures above you can see the fire retardant line of red.  We saw the airplane drop that. You can see how close it was to these houses. It went down this gully  and to the edge of the street, one more wind gust and houses were gone.  I just imagine the fire fighters standing in front of those houses blazing their water hoses.  We were definately blessed and protected.  We feel so grateful to be safe and have our house and all our belongings.