A Close Call

I'm guessing a lot of our female readers spent Friday night (and all day Saturday) much more pleasantly than we did. Just before midnight we got a knock on the door. It was a woman from the neighborhood informing us that we were being evacuated. Immediately. I thought it was all a bit ridiculous as the fire wasn't consuming homes yet, let alone any that were close to ours. I told James that we should just turn off our lights and pretend to be asleep. How would anyone know? James, being a more upright citizen, went outside and found someone slightly more official to talk to - a guy in a fluorescent, reflective vest. The real news was that we might have to evacuate. That we should prepare now because the next time he came around it would be with sirens and a p.a. system and we would have about 5 minutes to get the heck out of Dodge.

So we did just that. It was quite the educational experience. I found that my 3 priorities in regards to leaving my home with the possibility of only returning to its charred remains are :

1. Pack Necessities - clothes, toiletries, food, blankets, etc. Just enough to get us through a couple days.
2. Pack Valuables - our external hard drive, non-digital pictures, journals, keepsakes, and such. Basically anything that we would never be able to replace no matter how much insurance money we got.
3. Shower - Who knows when we would see another shower if we had to leave our home in the middle of the night? Plus we had been outside watching the fire so we smelled like smoke anyway.

We stayed up pretty late gathering things up, tying up loose ends, and waiting for the alarm to sound. We didn't think it would, but we didn't want to be caught unawares. Truthfully I probably should have been more concerned than I was. I realized this as we drove around Saturday morning to assess the damage to our beautiful mountains. The fire stopped less than HALF A MILE from our house. Yikes. I am surprised they didn't evacuate us.

All in all we were extremely lucky and blessed. The fire, though seemingly out of control last night, never reached the main part of the canyon and it looks as though no inhabited homes were damaged. I just can't get over how close it was, though. It was a good drill and while I hope we never have to think about it again, it's nice to put everything in perspective and take stock of your life in terms of a natural disaster. We've never had to do that before. Oh yeah, and it reminded us that we should update our insurance coverage!

We're On Fire!

Well, the canyon just south of us is, anyway. As I was getting dinner ready James called to tell me that his bus was running late and asked me if I had seen the smoke. I casually glanced out the kitchen window and saw the thickest wall of smoke rolling off the mountains. Here is the news story. Make sure and check out the other pictures on ksl.com. James submitted a couple of ours as well. It wasn't so bad until the wind shifted and now our neighborhood smells like a camp fire. Hopefully it gets contained soon and doesn't hit the main canyon. Good thing we aren't camping this week!

UPDATE: The wind is really blowing like crazy out there. They have evacuated our canyon. It really is a good thing we did not decide to go camping this week. That little hill sticking up over the houses in this first picture is completely charred now. So much for our beautiful view of the mountains.