Fire Fire Fire!

On Thursday evening of this past week, Shar and I made arrangements for our semi-annual date night. Okay, well we might get out a little more often than that, but not much. Shar and the girls met K Rae and I downtown to check something out at REI before our date. As we loaded the girls into the car and K Rae drove off, both Shar and I felt a little uneasy about letting them go. Something didn’t seem quite right. Nevertheless, we had an enjoyable meal and then went shopping. Just before we were planning on heading home, I got a call from my coworker and close friend, “Hey Bob, what’s up?” I asked.
“Hey, are you in the evacuation zone?” he responded.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused.
“Dishman hills is on fire and your house is in the evacuation zone.” He blurted out.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach as I thought about K Rae and our girls at home, 35 minutes away. My mind also flashed back to a huge white plume that Shar and I saw as we exited the restaurant. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now it made more sense.
In retrospect, I probably scared the gajeebers out of K Rae when I called her. Letty was in the middle of a bath and K Rae knew nothing of the evacuation orders. I reassured her we would be returning ASAP and asked her to get the girls ready if we needed to leave

As soon as we got in the car we turned on the radio and immediately heard the excitement over several area fires. Reporters were quickly and nervously blurting out what they knew. Four homes had burned to the ground, and over 1000 acres of the Dishman Hills, just miles from our home, had already burned. The governor herself was en route to Spokane Valley to assess the situation. Still we did not know what danger existed for our family. We continued to speed toward our home through a sky choked with smoke.

We arrived home and turned on the TV to realize that the danger to our house was not immediate. The winds had shifted driving the fires further south steering the danger away from much of the Valley residents. We also saw a map of the reduced evacuation area which now lay several miles to the west of our home. The danger to our family only subsided over the next 24 hours.

During this time, I visited the Red Cross Center temporarily set up a University High School. While emotions seemed to be running high, I was impressed at the number of individual helping out. Food, water and other supplies, such as children’s toys and games were flowing into the center. Many people were looking around for ways in which they could help out. I felt very proud at that moment to be living among such a loving people. As I drove home from the center, I looked out and saw the red glows spread across the top of our beloved hills. The event seemed unreal, something you witness on the news with names and places unrecognized, nothing visible from your home or affecting of your own life other than sympathy for those impacted.