fire fire fire.

almost the entire sky was filled with smoke, and shortly after this the smoke went black

yesterday was crazy.

just buckets of excitement. 

no, really. I'm being serious. [for once.]

it was about 11:47 yesterday morning when mom and I look up from making lunch in the kitchen, to the back yard, and see smoke rising in the distance.

cue: freak out mode.

okay. now wait. before I go on, you need to know:

· I live in the mountains. no, I don't mean some dinky old hills. I'm talking 7,000 feet above sea level kind of mountains. which means:

· it's dry and there's a whole lotta trees just waiting to be burned. moving on,

· we had a below average winter last year - so that made things worse. the year before we had water draining from the peaks until it snowed again in october. this year, the mountain tops struggled to stay covered.

· that being said, our normally dry after a huge winter mountain range is really dry right now. 

· oh, and also. about two miles away from my house, there's a lake. it's not big, but it's there. we can see it from our back deck.

now that that's covered, we can continue on. 

so. smoke rising, freaking out, etc, etc. 

the fire is at the lake. there's a little peninsula that shoots into the water, and that's where it started. sirens are going off now, and in my small town, that's a big deal. I'm not kidding when I say that everyone can hear them, and everyone knows something's wrong.

black clouds of smoke are rising, and, guessing by where the fire is, there are about 3 and a half, maybe 4 direct miles separating our house from this fire. 

crap.

mom calls dad. dad already knows. he's on his way home. the wind starts to pick up, and smoke keeps rising. every now and then, the bottom of the smoke gets an orange tint to it. 

again, crap.

more sirens go off, and we're listening to the police/fire department on our scanner. [yes, we have one of those. it's a sign of a true local...]

it takes about half an hour, but finally, it's confirmed via the scanner, that the fire is out. 

whew. 

I really can't tell you how scary that was. and it'll probably happen two more times before the summer's over. 

if the wind had kept going, and the firefighters hadn't been able to get it under control, it would have taken less than two hours [if that, even] for the fire to reach our house.

I am so thankful though, that it didn't. 

this was the fourth fire in my town in two weeks. the other three have happened in a couple of the other sub-divisions.

Definitely will be praying for the safety of my town for the next few months. 

again, I'm so thankful that we're all safe. God is good.