A little bit of Excitement 'round here...

I live in a semi-rural/suburb area on the top of a small ridge. Virginia and especially Colorado people would call it an ant hill! But this flat-land Texas gal calls it a mountain.

My house is perched on a small cliff with a steep back yard (4 acres) , surrounded by trees. Last week, our neighbor 3 doors (acres) down the street started a fire to burn some trees he had in his back yard....down a cliff. Well, the fire got out of control and the fire truck can't get to the fire to put it out and there seems to be unlimited fuel down there and the smoke poured over the road (blocking traffic view) across the street straight into my friends house. Her home has suffered smoke damage.

It had died down some and gave my friend some repreive, but when the Thursday "tornado storms" rolled through, the wind stoked the fire back up and it started threatening the man's home. More fire trucks. Still can't put it out, but protects the home.

Saturday evening comes and we still have fairly high winds. Mike & I are leaving the house to go to the store when he sees the flames behind our next door neighbor's house (the man's son) and he also sees the man with a water hose fighting the flames right behind the house. Mike grabs our rake, water hose and another neighbor brings two more hoses to connect together and heads down the hill to keep the fire from spreading onto our land. Fire trucks come....can't get to the fire with water, but they use leaf blowers to blow the burning leaves back onto the already burned spots and puts the fire out.

Yesterday.....I get a call at work from the husband of the neighbor who is suffering smoke damage and tells me that there is a fire in my back yard and it has come up the mountain on our empty lot next door and is threatening our neighbors house on the other side of us. He says the road is blocked off and the fire department is there. Before I can get my office wrapped up, he calls again and says that he stood on the small cliff and it was within five feet of him. Still before I can contact my husband, he calls again and says the fire is in my front yard! I joke with the neighbor, "if it threatens my house, could you break a window on my door and rescue some pictures?"

I have my husband paged at his job and tells him and we both head home. (we'll forget what speeds we each separately hit for now...but my husband beat me home and we work 2 miles from each other.)

Got past the police blockade and parked my car across the street and saw there was smoke everywhere, fire trucks, ambulance, and neighbors weilding water hoses.

Come to find out, it wasn't caused by the previous fire (which is still smoking by the way) but was caused by a contractor in the new subdivision in the valley below us. His fire had gotten out of control and had come from the other direction. The firemen actually had to fight to keep the fire from burning the lady's house next to my land. It burned her two acres and 2 of our acres. Fortunately the man who told me the fire was in my front yard actually meant that it had jumped the cliff and was in the front of our empty lot next to us, not actually in front of my house.

Since the firemen and everybody else were beginning to get it under control by the time I arrived and were busy stamping out the little fires....I was able to just stand on my deck and watch the little tractor dig a fire break at the base of the hill.

The fire did do some damage on our property that my husband will have to work on this weekend and then we have to go do our State boosts at a church 3 hours away on Sunday morning. Then of course, Ladies Day is coming up quick and I need the excitement 'round here to die down.

We're all good, but smell a little smoky today, but sure wish it would rain and the March winds would go away.

Wednesday 3/7/07
And here we go again....got a call....fire went up our house...but lady neighbor called fire department and grabbed a water hose and got it under control by the time they got there....they checked it...and went to fight another down the street that had flared up. I guess our house would have burned if she hadn't been home today. She says all is well. There has been a fire in our neighborhood for 7 days now!

ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG!