Fire and smoke...

Sunday night, as we opened our bedroom window for some fresh air, I could smell a little smoke in the air.  I thought a neighbor was having a fire.  At about 3 o'clock in the morning I woke to a burning throat and our room smelling like the house might be on fire.  I got up quickly and checked around the house.  All was well and it was clear the smell was coming from outside.  Thankfully, our bedroom windows were the only ones opened that night.  When I was assured our house was not on fire, nor was our neighbors houses I went back to bed.  As I dozed off I could hear the wind whipping around and knew we'd be in for tree branches down all over the place in the morning but nothing major.

The next morning I heard the news.  All of the northern counties were on fire, Napa and Santa Rosa being hit particularly hard.  Several fires had started and the wild winds (gusting up to 60 miles an hour) quickly carried the sparks and spread the fires.  Some of the fires merged into each other and residents were fleeing.  It was shocking and scary.  We could smell the smoke down here (about 40 miles away).

Lorien and I stopped in to see Pat Travis who lives up in Santa Rosa, she is the Grandmother of the triplets Lorien is such good friends with and is here watching the kids while their parents are in Spain.  Pat said her husband had just back home Sunday night for a work meeting Monday when he got the call to evacuate.  Thankfully, Pat had settled their emergency kids a few weeks earlier over General Conference weekend.  

As we watched and listened to the news the story got worse and worse.  The fire spread too quickly and most people did not have enough warning to get out of the way.  Many fled to safety without being able to gather anything from a home that was soon burnt to the ground.  

The smoke in the air down here has been awful.  We are not close to the fires and I cannot imagine what it is like up in the northern counties.  Terrifying.

We stayed home from school today and just had a day in.  The air was better but I made the call late last night when the winds were expected to pick up again, sending more smoky air our way.

I made the kids help clean the house and we watched a few movies.  Then we all needed to get out of the house for a bit.  We drove down to the mall and had a little session at Color Me Mine.  

I feel lucky to be safe and still have my family and stuff.  We are donating school supplies and blankets to help people up north.  

Scary stuff.