Fire and the Here and Now
[imgbelt img=Kelleyornaments.jpg] The people who lived near us weren’t especially close. Most of us had moved there for the seclusion. But the fire brought us together.
 and she was hoping to get there in time enough to evacuate them. </p><p>I posted to FaceBook what was happening and sent a text to a friend who also had property near us, hoping she would get it. At this point, since the local news wasn’t covering the fire, and I couldn’t count on her watching the TV anyway, social media seemed the way to go. </p><p>Time passed. At about 3:30 Scott called.</p><p>“The house is gone,” he said. “Our hay is gone. <em>Everything is gone</em>. The forest is on fire. Everything is burning. I watched a house burn — it only took minutes. The fence posts are on fire. I’ve got to get out of here. It’s like Mordor.”</p><p>I listened, unbelieving. </p><p>“Get out,” I said. “Get out now. You can’t do anything.”</p><p>“Be home soon.”</p><p>I hung up and a thousand things went through my mind. Insurance, insurance, we need to open a claim, now. </p><p>I dug out our homeowner’s policy and called the 800 number. After navigating through multiple menus, I finally got a person and started the process. He asked me a lot of questions about the property, verifying the details of our policy. </p><p>Then he asked, “And when did this fire happen?” I paused and replied, “Honey, the fence posts are still burning.” </p><p>He didn’t know what to say. We talked about wildfires and brush fires. He was in Colorado and knew wildfires. I started to cry. I told him how my parents had given us the property, how we had developed it from the ground up, every nail, every fence post we had put there by hand. </p><p>This complete stranger responded with compassion and comfort. He told me about his grandfather’s ranch burning in a wildfire. He understood. He told me what to expect when I first got out there to look at the property, how shocking it would be. But it would be okay he said, really, we would be taken care of. I pulled myself together, wrote down the appropriate information, thanked him profusely for his kindness and hung up. </p><p>When Scott got home his face was covered with soot and ash and his eyes were as big as dinner plates. He told me when he got to the area it was blocked off by highway patrol. A sympathetic trooper let him through when he explained he was a homeowner. </p><p>They never should have let him in. The trees on both sides of the road were on fire and firebrands were flying through air, driven by the wind. Homes were burning, trees and tree limbs were falling into the road. The smoke was so thick he couldn’t breathe, or see beyond ten feet. He pulled up in our driveway and surveyed the damage. </p><p>The ground under the truck was smoking. The wisteria along the fence was burning. Flames shot up and changed color as they burned structures. Water was shooting out of the ground where lines had burned and melted. Because of all the water “leaks” the fire hydrant across the road from our house was unusable. Trucks were hauling water in. Helicopters hovered in the air dropping water. </p><p>He shut the water off, got back in the truck and got out. </p><p>There was nothing else he could do. </p><p><strong>Immediate Aftermath</strong></p><p>It took about three days for the fire, which had been christened the “Moore Fire,” to be contained. </p><p>Understand that contained doesn’t mean put out. Within a few days they had 60% containment. Over the next week the fire was slowly put out, or rather burned itself out within its perimeter. In total, it burned about 3,000 acres. </p><p>It had crossed two state highways and a network of smaller roads with the help of the wind. Two people, a neighbor and her infant, had died. Unfortunately, those deaths got our little corner of the world national news coverage. Now the media was interested. The networks came in and interviewed the remaining neighbors, whose homes had not burned. They wanted a human-interest story about a close-knit community. </p><p>In truth, the area really wasn’t that close-knit. Sure, we had all lived there a long time, but the houses were about 2 acres apart, and most of us lived out there to get away from “close-knit.” You knew who lived around you, your immediate neighbors (especially if you shared a fence), but mostly you knew who lived where by the names on the mailboxes. </p><p><div class=)
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