Wildfire!

The weather here has been unnaturally hot and Sunday it reached 110 degrees.

Sunday lunch time we were just finishing our lunch when the power went off.  That meant one thing for me  - no air conditioning and Brad and William were concerned about the irrigation pumps being off.  As we were attempting to report it to the power company, we heard someone honking their car horn coming up our driveway, shouting words I never wanted to hear, "Fire Fire"!  It was our neighbor.

This is what I saw outside.  


Notice Echo, lower left, checking out the smoke.  That fire was on our pasture across the creek, coming towards us and Echo just stood there!  He could have least whinnied out a warning.

William and Brad went to help with the fire fighting and I stayed home to have a mini breakdown.

I'm naturally someone who gets going when the going gets tough.  I've put out sage brush fire by myself and was even helping with a wildfire two weeks before William was born.  Now, because of my health problems, I cannot lift a finger to help and that is the most stressful thing in the world.

I told the dogs we were going down with the ship.

The picture below William took of our property looking east.  You can see one of the fire trucks to the left.   To the left of our alfalfa field is the long dried up bed of Crab Creek.


I felt so helpless and when I did venture to peek outside I heard huge explosions.

This picture is looking more to the north east and it includes our neighbors property.  The big plume of smoke is coming from our neighbor's father's farm equipment.  I think it was a backhoe/digger and something else.  The fire caused the fuel tanks to explode.


Brad was helping our neighbor at his home place move some tractors etc away from the fire.  William was on his quad bike (ATV) with his shovel putting out hot spots.  All the farmers from neighboring farms were helping.


I took this picture from our house.  You can see our smoking pasture on the horizon.  Right after I took this picture, the hawk that you can see flying about, swooped down on the edge of the wheat.  I think he was after the baby quail.  I suspect he's the same murdering bastard who killed Ducky Boy, so I shouted at him and he fled.


Sunday night was pretty freakish.  It was midnight and I thought I'd calmed down enough to go to bed and that was when I noticed the indoor/outdoor thermometer said it was 90 degrees outside.  I couldn't believe it was that hot outside.  Just about two weeks ago it was getting down into the 30's at night.

Anyway, I went outside and thought I'd stepped foot onto an alien planet.  I couldn't believe the heat - at midnight!  Then the wind suddenly picked up.  Dust started to blow and it got into my mouth and eyes.  Then the dry lightening started!  The power went out again and all I could think of was 'fire storm'.  There was a big clap of thunder and William showed up (thunder claps always announce his arrival lol) and told me he was going to drive around to look for fires.

I woke Brad up so he could die with his boots on, but he really wanted to sleep with his boots off.  After a bit of shouting he came downstairs and no sooner than he did the rain poured down.  The relief was incredible.  William said the downpour seemed to be a micro-burst right over our farm and he had to drive with his windshield wipers on full speed.

Everyday since Sunday the fire has reignited and the volunteer fire department have had to come out again.  Brad and William have a sprayer which holds about 700 gals and they have been helping.  Fence posts, ancient cow turds and sagebrush roots can smolder for days and when the winds starts up, or changes directions, the fire can take off again.  Everything is so very dry.

Sunday night I heard that the city of Wenatchee had level 3 evacuations.  They ended up losing about 30 houses and some commercial buildings.  The embers from the burning houses blew across town and started other buildings on fire!  I kept thinking, 'It's only June'!!!  My nerves can't take another three months of this.