Man is in the forest - the final chapter, but not the end.

So, on Saturday after returning home, I gathered up my reciepts and necessary paperwork and headed to the filing station that the National Guard had set up at our city offices.

Upon arriving, I was escorted to a tent to fill out paperwork.  It was surprisingly little paperwork (considering it was a government issue).  After filling it out, I was brought into a room filled with Guardsman.  Every person there was so humble, so contrite.  They were gentle with every resident of Herriman, taking accountability for the fire.  They were gracious in their treatment of us.  I was signed in, and after a short time I met with a paralegal, whose job it was to review my receipts.  The guard looked over everything I had.  He wrote up his total estimate for what they owed us, and brought me to a JAG officer to review the work he had done.  It was actually very emotional to see all these guardsmen and women in uniform just being so gracious to those of us who had been affected by the fire.  They paid both Michael and me for the time we missed from work.  They gave us a generous per diem.  They refunded us for the few clothing items that we had to buy.  I walked out that day with a check. 

As of this writing, I still have to finish filing our insurance claim. 

Our soft surfaces (all fabrics and shoes) were laundered by a professional remediation service.  We had so much laundry that it took THREE weeks to get it all back.  The bill came to over $17,000.00 just for the soft surfaces.  We have boxes and boxes piled up and I still haven't found the kids' Halloween costumes.  It will take us weeks to get it all put away.

The dust is never ending. Wildfires make a ton of dust, and it seems that we dust our home only to have it look (a week later) as though we haven't dusted in a month. The ripple effect of this fire seems to be ongoing. Little things, like the amount of time it will take to put away the laundry, the extra dusting, the long wait to get our clothes back, keep popping up and will continue to. That being said, I want to share the words of a friend, who really summed it all up very, very well.

Our friend, Carl Wimmer (and local Representative for the Utah House of Representatives) summed everything up very well when he said this:

"At around 2:30am Governor Herbert, Congressman Chaffetz, Mayor Mills and I were driven close to the fire line to view what was occurring. The flames were extremely hot, very high and showed no sign of stopping. The foreseen devastation was horrible to imagine, as we were once again told that they had 0% containment on the fire.

Governor Herbert had arranged for he, Congressman Chaffetz, Fire Chief Jensen and myself to go up in a chopper at 6:00am to view the damage. We decided to leave so we could sleep for an hour or two before flying. Mayor Josh Mills stayed. He was not about to leave his city to go sleep, when so many were still in desperate conditions.

The next morning we met and boarded the chopper. All of us on board were prepared for the worst. We knew how devastating the fire looked just three hours before. Nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to see...Not another house had been destroyed, not one. Yes, some were damaged. But not a single home had burned to the ground with the exception of the three which had occurred earlier. Chief Jensen explained that after we had left the fire line around 2:30am, the winds had changed direction, the firemen had been able to do “back burns” to stop the fire, and one brave bulldozer driver had helped by making fire lines next to the homes.

The black charred earth was next to many homes, but the homes were still standing. The vast majority of the flames were out. Governor Herbert called it a miracle, and it was. Our prayer in Mayor Mills’s office had been heard. Not only did He change the winds, but He buoyed up the men and women who worked ALL NIGHT to help save people’s homes. There were no serious injuries reported.
The loss of the three homes is tragic, and the devastation to those families cause my heart to ache. I do not diminish their loss in any way, just to say that it was a miracle that more were not lost...God moved on Herriman that night. Of this I am certain."

Our whole town has rallied (and continues to rally) to thank the brave men and women who fought this horrific fire.  Our friends and neighbors have volunteered in the re-seeding of the mountian (to help prevent runoff and landslides).  This whole experience has been an absolute modern day miracle.  We are so very, very blessed that so many homes were spared from this atrocity. Carl was right. God moved on Herriman that night. I, too, am certain.

Now, pardon the cheesy music, but the slides show everything - from the start of the fire, through the awful night, to the next day, police barricades, National Guard restitution, sandbags being made, and the mountain being reseeded.  It's amazing to watch.