Man is in the Forest - part II (coming home)

As we drove to home to Herriman that morning, we wondered what we would encounter.  Would they let us in to our home?  Would the air still be smoky?  Would the mountain still be on fire?

This is what we saw:

This is what the mountain looked like at the start of things on Sunday as well.  The only differences then were that the smoke was on the right side of the picture and the mountain was still green.

If you hadn't known that the smoke on the mountain was actually smoke, this might look somewhat Utopian.  What we knew though was that part of the mountain was still on fire, and most of the mountain was black.  And rows, upon rows, upon rows of homes were still, miraculously intact.

Although the fire was somewhat contained by this point, as we drove into our community, I could feel my throat starting to burn from the lingering smoke, (which had been much worse the night before) my eyes started to water, and I started to sneeze.

We drove to the first major intersection in our neighborhood.  The guardsman read our address from my driver's license and didn't want to let us in, seeing as how they were letting families in up to 14100 and we lived at 14172.  I told him we really only wanted to check on our pets and then we would leave again.  His buddy said he wasn't sure if the next checkpoint would let us through, but he let us give it a try.

We saw the next checkpoint as we were almost to our home.  My clever husband drove 3/4 of the way around the block in order to avoid him, and we pulled up into our driveway.  The garage smelled awful.  The house smelled smoky, but not terrible. We walked in, noticed our disgusting hastily abandoned dinner dishes, and headed to the basement door.  We let our cats out, and they made a beeline for upstairs.  I picked up Falfie, our tiger-striped boy, and held him for a moment.  He was pretty agitated, so I let him go.  Knowing they were no longer in danger, we left.

We talked to some of the law enforcement who were blocking the way to the homes a block east of us.  We asked them if they knew when the evacuation would be lifted.  They didn't. 

We drove over to the evacuation zone (the local high school) to see if we could find people we knew who might have more information.  We couldn't find them.  What we did find, though, was that volunteers from the community and the Red Cross had a plethora of food for the few people there.  It actually brought tears to my eyes to see how many in the surrounding areas had jumped to aid the evacuees.  Several fast food restaurants, Wal-Mart, and even some nicer restaurants all heeded the call to bring food up to the evacuation zone.  The volunteers insisted that we leave with food, and they loaded us up with snacks, salads, and bread.  We headed off toward Salt Lake City to plan our next move.

I was completely worn out.  Not having had even an hour's sleep the night before had caught up with me.  I knew everything was safe, and any adrenaline that had been keeping me going, was gone.  Michael dropped me off at a hotel that was about 15 miles from our home, and went to retrieve the kids.  I don't remember anything other than turning on the air conditioning, and dropping into bed.  I woke up when Michael brought the kids to me.  He and Frankie went to do something-- get more clothes from the house, I think.  And I entertained the boys.  Thomas was a little wild man, completely out of his element, and off his schedule.  I was grateful when Michael finally pulled back up the hotel.

Not long after Michael came back, we learned that our home had been cleared for return.  We still had to pay for the hotel, but they were kind and gave us a discount.  We headed home.  We ate leftovers for dinner, marveled at being home, and went to bed early.

The next day, Tuesday, my friend and co-teacher, Sherry, came over to school with me.  The whole time she was with me, I was blowing my nose, itching my face, and wiping my eyes.  I was so allergic to whatever had burned.  It was awful.  I didn't know how I was going to live this way.  My hope was that once the fire was out, the allergens and smoke would clear, and I would be okay again. 

Shortly after Frankie got home from school, (around 3:00)  I found out that the wind had shifted and the fire was heading back our way.  The air outside was smokier and had turned gray.  Since I was the only adult home with the kids, Frankie and I gathered up everything we had evacuated with, loaded up the car with the kids, our stuff, the dog, and four cats (my two, my nanny's one, and the outside kitty we feed), and drove back to Salt Lake.  The cats meowed the whole way.  They were not happy at all to be in the car.  Michael and our nanny, Devin, were both working in Salt Lake at the time, and we arranged to meet back at the home we stayed in on Sunday night.

At that point, I had no idea where we were going to go, or how long we would have to be gone. I got on the phone with our insurance company, and started explore our options.

This mountain used to be green.

Stay tuned for part 3...

(photos by Clayton Tycksen and unknown pilot)

Man is in the forest - part I

This past Sunday afternoon (around 3:00) I noticed that our home was starting to smell smoky, and I heard that some National guardsman has started a fire on the mountain behind our home. They had been shooting machine guns during high red alert fire conditions (not too bright) and a spark had hit dry brush.  To be honest,  I wasn't really worried about it since the National Guard starts a fire in our mountains every year.

This year was different in that this fire was about to spread...quickly, and far. But we didn't know this yet.


We went about business as usual. Later that night, our friends, the Brays, joined us for dinner. We sat down to eat around 7:15ish, as dusk was setting in.  Throughout our meal we took turns checking out the fire that was starting to crawl over the mountainside we view from our back door. We learned that families who lived high up in the mountain were being evacuated to the junior high that was about a block from our home. We still weren't too worried. After all, we were close to the place they were evacuating to.

The view about a block from my home at about 3:30

In the ten minutes it took us to learn that the evacuation site was being moved a few miles away, the fire tripled in size. Although we hadn't received any kind of word that our neighborhood was expected to be evacuated, we started gathering our photos, clothing, shoes, and important papers. It was a fairly unorganized packing spree as we stuffed our clothing in plastic bags. Although I felt very peaceful about the possible outcomes of this raging fire, we were preparing for the worst.

When we decided to pack

It took us about 30 minutes to pack everything we needed, and by the time we were loading our car our neighborhood was being evacuated by the police. By this point, we were frantically loading our car, concerned about our babies breathing in the overpowering smoke that was now hovering all around us.  I couldn't get out of my driveway fast enough.  We sat in rush-hour like traffic breathing in that horrible smoke for about 15 minutes as we inched our way out of our neighborhood. I put my A/C on recirculate to help, and tried to get Adam to hold cloth over the babies' mouths only, but they were having no part of that.  My single focus was on getting them away from the smoke as quickly as possible.  I guess I should have felt frightened, but honestly we had been able to get so much of what mattered out of our home and were never in imminent danger. I just wanted to get my babies to better air.

What the mountain looked like as we were leaving

As we had been packing, we made the decision to take our dog with us, but because we didn't think our neighborhood was going to get evacuated (in that we were leaving mostly to get the babies out of the smoke), we locked our cats in the basement (which wasn't smoky, and left them with food and water.
By the time we were halfway out of our neighborhood I regretted my decision. Given the smoke and the traffic though, it was too late to turn back.

We headed for a friend's home, about 25 miles from our home. Michael and the kids eventually settled in for a restless sleep, and I stayed glued to Facebook watching for every little update. I learned that more and more of our community was being evacuated, and I started to get a little bit worried.I think fear for my pets was the single concern that kept me up all night. I called the city and asked them if there was any way to evacuate my pets. They told me that if my home did catch on fire, firefighters would be alerted to the pets and make every effort to get them out. This didn't go very far in assuaging my guilt. I literally slept for 55 minutes the whole night, keeping my phone on my lap in case I got the dreaded call that my house had been damaged.

A few blocks from my home

Through the night, media sources reported that four homes had been burned but that we wouldn't learn the full extent of the damage until morning light. From what I could gather from neighbors on Facebook, media websites, and our city's website, our home was still a few blocks from the fire line. For me, the actual fire was coming way to close for comfort.  I just simply could not go to sleep and kept my vigil by computer light.  By dawn, I was physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. I took a shower and Michael and I learned that they were letting residents in up to 14100 South. We live at 14172 South. We headed for home, ready to rescue our pets, not sure if they would let us in.

To be continued...



(photo credits given to Heather Genessy, Doran Barton, Christopher Jones, Clayton Tycksen, and some unknown sources)