Friday, February 08, 2008

Nothing Like Coming Home to TOTAL Craziness!

It was 1:45 Friday afternoon when Miss Janice, Camden's babysitter, called me at school. She asked if Camden and I were home. (Camden had to stay home from school all week.) I told her no, and asked what was wrong (luckily Cam was at my parents house or I would have been even more panicked!). She told me to hurry home and check on our house because there were grass fires directly behind our hosue. I hung up and ran next door to tell the teacher I needed her to take my class.
As I ran out of school, I called Jay; he had already been informed by one of the coaches at Everman, who had driven by our neighborhood and seen the smoke. The fires were caused by a train with a bad bearing. Several acres of land behind our house were burnt. Of course it was extremely windy, so the fire fighters had a difficult time containing the fires. Luckily no homes were damaged.
Our next door neighbor and the coach that saw the smoke were able to protect our back yard as well as a couple others nearby. They watered down the yards and a large area behind our fence. One fence was kicked down to stop the yard already on fire. You can see from the pictures we were LUCKY they were in the right place at the right time.
The fires skipped 3 or 4 houses directly connected to us. We are blessed to have a caring neighbor who is always willing to help the people around him. It was neat to see neighbors work together in this time of 'crisis'. I wish the following pictures were scratch and sniff... Fire truck behind our house. You can see the burnt area that lies in between our houses and the train tracks.
The fire burnt all the way down the creek. The house along the creek were effected the worst!
News helicopers were all over the place.
House along the creek.
Creek from the other direction.
Behind our house. We are next to the house with the shed. You can tell were my neighbor was able to stop the fire before it reached any closer. He saved the whole end of the block.
Another helicopter
You can see where the fires went into the back yard.

The fire skipped all around. Pretty weird how a fire works.
Another creek view.
Another fire truck putting out a hot spot. Everytime a train passed, this area would flame back up.
Creek
You can see how the fire made a horse shoe around our yards. It burnt close to the side walk and then jumped into another area.
Burnt tree.


My camera was dead when most of the action was happeing. I tried to get a picture of all the neighbors, and coaches that came with Jay. God is good! Thank you God for protecting all the homes!!!

9 comments:

Finally an Abrigg..... said...

OOO OH MY GOSH!

campers said...

wow that looks close.......

andydawn said...

HOLY CRAP!!! That reminds me of the time i was "studying" after school at our house on high life in abilene when the firedpartment knocked at our door and informed me of the fire that was on our fence....caused by a cigarette!! SOOOO SCARY!!

Finally an Abrigg..... said...

YOU WON A BLOG MAKEOVER!!!!!! I left her a comment and told her to choose you and Mindy and she did!!!

Hollie Reese said...

I was reading your blog as you were commenting on mine...kinda crazy!

I can't believe that about the fires! That was so close! i am glad you were able to save your house!

mamao-nonna said...

WOW! I HEARD about it, but the pictures make it even MORE REAL! I'm sooooo glad that God was in action and ready to send help to save the neighborhood from FIRES!
The Lord is GOOD, and his HELPERS are AMAZING!!!!!!!
Love you ALL!
Nonna

Laura said...

MAV! I am so glad that everything was alright, that is flipping scary!

hejlyeah said...

WHOA. That's nuts. I seriously had a dream last night about a fire in someone back yard, and we were using the fence to hold it back for some reason. Anyway, I just read this. Freaky! Glad all is well.

Leslie said...

wow! Praise the Lord for good neighbors and Cam not being at home.