Smoke and Evacuation Practice

The smoke from the fires to the 

west of us settles in the valley

off and on, especially at night.

This map is from last week. 

The fires are worse now.
Plus there's new fires that aren't 
shown on the map.

Last night the smoke settled once

again in the valley filling our home

with it's acrid smell, 

and choking thickness.
We had the cooler on when we
went to bed and the smoke settled
in afterwards. The cooler sucked
in the smoke and I woke up 
with a sore throat and irritated lungs.

I'm usually up before Rick
and enjoy an hour or so of some
tablet reading and coffee time
 while I wait for him to wake up.

This morning, before Rick got up
 I heard wood chopping sounds 
from the neighbors. I thought that
was unusual since we certainly don't 
need to use our wood stoves to warm up.
Then I heard a gunshot.
That's not too unusual here in the country.
Annoying yes, unusual no.
I have no idea if those sounds 
are connected with the rest of the 
story or not...

A little while later I heard sirens
that I thought were headed up the 
freeway which is down the hills 
from us.

Soon after hearing the sirens
Rick came out of the bedroom
and headed straight outdoors.
From our deck, we could see
the flashing red lights and a red glow
from a neighbors home across 
the canyon road down hill from us.
Rick said to get dressed,
and we prepared to evacuate.
We were worried the fire 
would spread uphill and we 
are directly in it's path.
Rick hurriedly dressed and headed
back outdoors to go check further
what was going on.
Meanwhile I'm packing up
clothing, bathroom supplies, 
photos, dog food, my camera,
 phone and tablet electronics and chargers.  
When the evacuation adrenaline 
kicks in, a bit of panic ensues.
I'm trying to remember everything
I needed to do.
The smoke in the air is choking me,
and my throat and lungs are feeling it
as my breathing is impaired.
Once I think I have the most important
things ready to deliver to our cars,
I head out to the porch to see if 
I could hear or see anything.
Rick was cutting across our neighbors
property back up the hill to ours.
He reported that a mobile home
was burning and that the firemen
had it mostly under control.
The nearby vegetation that had caught
fire had been put out.

We don't know these neighbors
who's home has burned to the ground.
They are known in our neighborhood
as trouble with lots of drunken yelling
and screaming fights in the middle of 
the night.
Everyone is concerned with their 
property not being fire safe
and it's full of junk cars etc. 
  I hope they're not hurt.
But I also hope they move out
of the neighborhood as they don't 
own the property and they're not 
good neighbors.
This probably sounds callous
but if you lived here, you might
consider it a blessing in disguise.
I feel bad for them
especially knowing what it's been
like for my daughter's family
since their own house caught fire.
I guess it's a bit of mixed feelings for them,
because of the worries they've 
given our neighbors.

Anyway, 
I realized after the fact two things.

We need to grab Libs
before getting her harness out.
  She thinks it's a game to 
play keep away if she sees the harness first.
She doesn't like the harness.
Too bad!

The second thing is:
I forgot to pack our meds.
They're replaceable, 
but it would be a pain in the tush.

There's one more thing.
There's nothing more valuable
than getting ourselves and Liberty 
out of harms way if and when 
this does happen again.
It's not the first time we've prepared
or have been evacuated from our home
due to the high risk fire area we live in.
It won't be the last.
But it is scary and worrisome.
I'll be glad when the rainy season
comes... (please)
and we can get past this wildfire season.