Fire!!

So we had a bit of excitement around here Thursday. I had flown to Seattle to work for the day and when I was leaving the airport to come home, I noticed a big cloud of smoke way off yonder in the distance. As I drove closer I realized it was definitely near our area. There was more and more smoke the closer I got. I reached the home stretch, the last looong road, and once I turned the corner saw flames and lots of people rushing around to try to put them out. Some embers had ignited a field directly beneath the burning hills. There was so much smoke it was hard to tell where the fire really was. Anyway, short story long, we weren't evacuated, but my parents were and they reside 3 blocks to the north of us. We were very lucky. I did pack up in case we needed to leave, but luckily didn't need to put any of it to use. It was an extremely stressful night full of Bill hosing down the roof and time spent on the corner watching the hillside burn in the dark. 13 families lost everything. Someone's backyard fire pit had a few hot ashes left from the night before and the strong winds we had ignited them and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here are some pictures G took using his phone, these show the vantage point from our house and the corner. The intersection that looks less smokey shows the Lutheran church where the fire dept. had a staging area and the checkpoint for all of the residents that were evacuated behind the church and to the south. I wish we would've taken some in the dark because you could see the actual flames lots better, but oh well.