Fire and Flight

On Thursday, June 21, my sister in law came over for a lunch/playdate. When she arrived, we noticed a small fire burning on the mountain behind my house.  I didn't really think much of it at first because since we've lived here, we have seen about four small fires on the hill and usually they burn out pretty fast.  As we ate lunch and let the kids play in the yard, we noticed that it was growing quite rapidly.  I still wasn't all that worried about it because it was going up the hill and not towards our subdivision. 

(sorry for the blurry picture, this one is from my phone)

 That evening we saw four helicopters and one airplane dumping water and flame retardant on the mountain. We kept watching it climb higher and higher up the mountain and when nightfall came, the mountain was glowing.

The next morning came (Friday, June 22) and I didn't really think much about the fire and assumed that they had probably gotten it under control over night. I was busy with getting kids dressed and breakfast dishes cleaned up.  Then, a little after 9 o'clock, Mason pulled back our curtain on our sliding glass door, and bolted outside.  As I stepped out to go get him, I was shocked to see that the fire had shifted and was heading right for us.  I quickly grabbed Mason out of the sand box, and on my way back to the house, I noticed ash was falling on my trampoline.  It was at this point in time that I had the thought, "You need to get your family packed up right now."  I snapped this picture and sent it to one of my good friends that lives higher up in the subdivision and told her that I thought the next subdivision over was getting evacuated.  I could see flashing lights driving all through the subdivision and the cloud of smoke that you see was right over them. 

 The next few minutes were a blur.  I was texting some of my friends in the ward and talking to my neighbor on the phone about what was going on.  I looked online at the city website and sure enough, they had ordered an evacuation for our subdivision.  I told Carson that we had to leave because the fire was coming towards us and asked him to go pack some clothes in his backpack.  I tried to keep my cool, and calmly told the little boys to go sit on the couch and to watch a show on Netflix while I packed some bags for us.  In spite of my best efforts, they went crazy and were screaming that they didn't want to leave.  I called Jeff and told him we were being evacuated and that he should come home.  It turns out that he was heading home anyway because he had hurt his back at work and could hardly move. 

 I ran through my house trying to find bags and clothes for everyone. It happened to be laundry day that day and almost all of our clothes were downstairs waiting to be washed.  I grabbed what I could find and stuffed it into bags.  After that was taken care of, I focused on trying to get things we would miss if our house did actually burn down.  I grabbed the computer and external hard drive, photo albums, baby books, and the lock box that contains all our important documents.  The three little boys were all screaming and I couldn't think straight about what I should try to grab.  This is when I realized that I need to make a "what to grab in case of emergency" list.  I also realized how much easier this would have been if I had included clothes in my 72 hour kit.  Our kit mostly contains survival gear like flashlights, ropes, pocket knives, food, etc. and I didn't even think to take it because I knew I was going to my sister in law's house in Salt Lake.

As I was out loading our van, our bishop came by to make sure we knew it was time to get out. I was mostly packed by this time and gave him the thumbs up as he went on to the next house. A few minutes after this I was packed and heading out of the subdivision.  It was kind of eerie to drive up the parkway and see everyone throwing things in their cars and heading out.  Of course trying to get our of the subdivision was crazy, with cars backed up.  My friend later told me that just after I left, the sheriff came through with his bullhorn saying that we had to leave right now...I'm kind of glad we missed that because I think it would have freaked my children out even more.

As we drove to Salt Lake, I reflected on the fact that this was the first time in my life that I had ever been in an emergency situation like that. To me, it felt like I was very unprepared: it was laundry day so it was crazy to try to pack clothes; my van was practically on empty; I didn't have 72 hour kits for each individual in our family that were ready to go; I had to get the four kids ready and packed by myself; and my husband was injured at work that day so even if he had come home, he couldn't have helped much.  I learned a lot of lessons that morning on emergency preparedness.

We were able to come home later that evening, although the smoke was very thick and we were told there was a good chance they would have to evacuate us again overnight.  We were lucky this time around.  With everything so dry, I worry that it might happen again before the summer is over.  If it ever does, I am hoping I will have learned my lesson and I will be more prepared to leave at a moment's notice.

This is how close the fire came to our subdivision.