4th of July flashback 2007
Last year on the evening of July 3rd we could smell smoke and heard what sounded like a bunch of chain saws and quickly realized a fire was close by. We ran upstairs and onto the deck where we discovered that the beautiful mountain our home is nestled in was on fire! Pat, Justin, Jake & I (Ashley & Karli were in Hawaii) decided we wanted to get a closer look to see for ourselves how bad the fire really was. We jumped in the car and followed the smoke a few miles south of our house and this is what we saw.
We drove down to the Winnie's house and found Brandon & Robyn (the rest of the Winnie's were out of town) watching from the rooftop. We decided to join them on their lofty perch, so up we climbed to watch the fiery display. After watching this sad but oddly beautiful sight we finally called it a night sometime around one or two in the morning.Bright and early the next day we were back out on the deck checking to see if the fire was out. You can tell in the picture below that the fire on the north side was out but on the south side it was still burning. We grabbed the spotting scope and could see a line of firemen cutting their way up the side of the mountain.
Look closely and you can see them walking in single file in the middle of this picture
We watched as the noisy helicopters hovered overhead, flying back and forth practically through our backyard to a nearby reservoir. They would fill the bucket hanging from the bottom of the helicopter with water, then fly back to the fire and dump it. After awhile we decided we would go over to the park and watch from there so we could get in on some of the action.
Ok so we didn't actually get in on the action but we did get to talk to the Fire Marshall and ask him lots of questions like .... How did it start? (illegal fireworks) How much does something like this cost to put out? What happens to the person if they get caught? etc... He told us that this was a hard fire to fight since it was a difficult location to get to and the 100 + degree weather wasn't helping either.
Jake & Justin chatting with the fire Marshall
Robyn & Brandon looking cool
The smaller helicopter would land in the park and get water from the pool that they created from the fire hydrant
Smokey Mountains
This is how we spent most of our 4th of July holiday. I would have never guessed that watching a fire could be so entertaining but it was! I just hope that this year the only fireworks we see are the patriotic kind that light up the sky and not the mountains!
1 comment:
We raced up on the 4th to check out the damage...at the same time the line of "yellow" firefighters came trooping down the hill. I wrote about it last year. It was so emotional watching them come off the mountain and we clapped and clapped. Most of them were young enough to be my kids. It really was awe-inspiring! I think most of the damage was behind that ridge.
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