A Long NightAs I sit here this morning typing this, out one bedroom window I can still see a large cloud of white puffy smoke. It looks like fog really, or like a cotton ball, with just a little tint of gray. The fire is still burning up above the reservoir, but thankfully the wind is coming from the north now, and blowing the flames away from our neighborhood. Out my other window I see the black chard foothill. The one that just yesterday was showing the first hints of fall color. A blackhawk helicopter is flying over now, towing it's tiny bucket.
It All Started...It all started Sunday morning. We sleep with our windows open and we woke to the smell of smoke. According to the news a fire is burning somewhere far away, so we don't think anything of it.
When we get out of church at 4:00 pm and walked home, we can see a gray plume of smoke over our mountain. We hear on the news that there is a brush fire at Fort Williams that was started at the machine gun range. The cloud is little more than a curiosity to us. Kaitlin takes advantage of the shifting orange light to get some cool photographs.
At seven when I leave to go to a meeting, the smoke cloud has grown. It's an amazing sight. As I drive up the mountain side to the church building, I see the valley covered in gray smoke, turned orange by the setting sun. The sun is a red and orange ball on the horizon.
A Frightening AwakeningFor an hour and a half I am in the meeting. We are discussing the Christmas Music Fireside. I'm assigned to write the script for it, and that is what I am thinking about when I exit to my car. Night has fallen. I pull out around the building to head home, and am not prepared for the sight. The mountain is on fire!
I have never seen anything like it. Bright orange lines of fire zig-zag across the mountain range. In some places I see the flames lick up towards the sky. The mountain is cased in a hazy orange halo against the black sky.
I'm in a hurry to get home, and drive past lines of cars pulled over to take in the sight. Everyone is out of their houses watching and waiting. When I get home my family is already tense. Ruth is visibly upset. But there is also this feeling of excitement and exhilaration.
We all pile in the van and drive out to get a better view. It's amazing and frightening all at the same time.
Evacuation?Once home again, reports start coming in that many of our friends and neighbors are being evacuated. Our primary news source about this is Facebook, though we do get a few calls, friends letting us know that they are leaving. When Chaz get's a call from a friend, only a few blocks away, it is then that the reality that we may also have to evacuate distills upon me.
Two families in our circle begin to pack up. They are leaving. Another friend, who's boy has asthma has already left. Ruth begins to pack - just in case.
We get a call from my brother in Layton offering his house to us. Chuck and I consider the possibilities as we watch the line of fire move closer to our neighborhood and the air thickens with smoke and starts rain down ash. We evacuate our rabbit into the house.
The Waiting GameOur across the street neighbor is a ham radio guy, and is also the emergency communications specialist for our area. He is standing in front of his house with his radio. Our bishop arrives and he joins our Elder's Quorum president on his roof to keep an eye on the flames.
Around 11:30 I get a call from the PTA president requesting that I put information on the PTA website and Facebook page about school closures. Both the city website and the school district website has crashed. Facebook is still the best place to get information. The city is updating often.
By midnight Chuck has gotten Ruth and Jared settle in front of a movie, Kaitlin and Chaz are packing. The evacuation zone is growing and we are beginning to feel like we may be next. A group of us stand together on our neighbors lawn watching the fire progress. It's an organic living thing that moves unpredictably. At times it the flames would be high and concentrated, and then with a gust of wind it would move across the mountain like a snake. Huge areas would be consumed in a matter of seconds. We watch the flames move across the ridge line of one of the foothills with amazing speed. In the far distance we can see large blocks of orange red flames, the smoke is blacker and thicker. The men on the roof report that they are houses burning.
The
wind is blowing from the south east, and suddenly we see flames lick over the top of the foothill that our neighborhood is built against. We can see the top ridge of houses in silhouette against the orange flames. Flashing blue lights and tiny black men are dwarfed against the flames. We see fire hoses starting to douse the homes. From our perspective it looked like squirt guns shooting at a huge bonfire.
We stand there and watch for thirty or so minutes, thinking that at any moment these houses would burst into flames and rain burning embers down on our neighborhood. Thankfully they don't. The wind has shifted and the flames in that area are dieing down.
The shifting wind pushes a line of flame up our foothill. Within seconds our foothill is covered in flames! The fire moves so fast. This is the most frightening time because we know if the wind shifts, that wall of flame will slam into our neighborhood. The fire is less then a mile away now.
Our ham radio guy gets reports that the houses just to the south of us must evacuate. Again we are spared evacuation. The wind keeps blowing in our favor, and the weather report is optimistic. A cold front is moving in from the north. Over the next little while we watch the flames grow smaller and slow down.
Safe Enough to SleepIt's almost 2:00am and we have decide to go to bed. We are all exhausted. The wind is steady from the north now and we feel that most of the danger has passed. Our city is operating on a reverse 911 system, and we will be called if the evacuation zone changes. Jared fell asleep in front of the movie, but Ruth is terrified and sleeps in our room, beside me on the floor. I feel a sence of peace, like everything will be fine, so I fall asleep right away.
At 5:00am I am up again. I check the school district website and update my PTA website and Facebook group with the news that the local schools are closed. Around 6:30 am Chaz heads out the door to go to the High School, he is a student body officer there, and they are helping with the evacuation site.
I woke up at 8:00am. My head is pounding, but the sun is shinning. I opened all the windows to try to air out the smoky smell in the house. I've also started the laundry since all our cloths smell like fire. It's amazing the difference a few hours can make.
The news is that only four houses were lost. One friend, who's house was right in the thick of things, still doesn't know if one of those houses was hers. In the light of day the events of the night seem surreal. We feel very blessed that everything is alright.
Things I'd Do DifferentlyI guess it's only human to try to make something good come out of something that was terrifying. I've been thinking a lot this morning about things we could have done differently or better. Here are some things I've come up with:
A Place to Go: Establish a place to evacuate to in advance. We got offers from family, but they lived quite a distance away, and we wanted to stay close. If we had already established an evacuation place with a friend that lived closer, we probably would have been more willing to evacuate earlier. As it was, I did call a friend around 11pm that lived only 15 minutes away, and she was on stand by to receive us if we had to evacuate.
A List of What We Should Take: I wished I had a list of things I needed to take if we had to evacuate and only had 20 minutes to load the car and go. It was hard in the moment to consider everything that we would need under those circumstances.
Masks: At times the smoke got thick. It would have been nice to have had face masks in our 72 hour kits that we could wear if we had to. My throat and eyes are still irritated this morning.
Evacuate Earlier: If I had it to do all over again, I think I would have had the kids pack up early on and headed for a relatives house. Then we would have been spared the anxious hours of watching and waiting. Then my kids would have the memory of a fun adventure to a cousin's house, rather then the memory of watching a wall of flame move closer and closer to their house.
So GratefulI feel so grateful to those hundreds of men that risked their lives to save our neighborhood. I'm grateful to their families, that sacrifice their fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, to keep us all safe. I'm thankful to Heavenly Father, who turned the winds. That made all the difference.
Thank you all for your concerns and prayers. I feel better after writing this all out, so thanks for reading.
