As I stated in that post, I really wasn't very worried about the fire. I had complete faith that, while we may lose quite a bit of forest land, our city would be safe. I was very wrong.
Everything seemed fine that fateful Tuesday, until I went outside for my 3p break at my office building. The smoke was really starting to thicken, and as I looked west I noticed that now I could actually see flames coming over the ridge above the scar with the naked eye. I ran and grabbed my camera:
But was I scared yet? Hell no! I just posted the picture on Facebook and went on working. I got some comments from friends asking why I was still there, and I just explained that it still wasn't really that close, I had used a really strong zoom lens to get this picture. Occasionally my coworkers would stop what they were doing to discuss the flames we were seeing, but most of us didn't think about leaving. Guess I still felt like the city was invincible, nothing bad would happen.
By 4 to 4:30p they started announcing the evacuation for Mountain Shadows. We still didn't shut down. The smoke kept getting thicker and thicker, and I was starting to hear a lot of sirens. We had been listening to the helicopters and planes all day, but this was really the first time I had heard actual sirens. My boss said that they were starting to implement the emergency plan: what to take when we left, what to do about the refrigerated supplies, etc. When 5 pm rolled around, closing time, I asked if they needed me to stay and help shut things down. They said no, and I started for home. The sky gray and orange and the smoke was so thick it looked like night. For a brief instant, I thought about driving back up to Mesa Drive, but decided against it. I thought that I needed to hurry up and get out of the area to make room for all of the people trying to evacuate. The traffic was awful, but it still didn't take me much longer to get home.
I don't think the full extent of how close I was to the fire really hit me until I made it home. When I got home and turned on the news, I found out that the Flying W Ranch had burned to the ground and many other homes were burning. I think I went into shock. That's when it hit me as to how close I had been. They had extended the mandatory evac zone to the area that I worked at. When I later talked to my boss about what happened after I left, he told me how bad it got. He said that embers were falling on his car and everywhere else, and he really wasn't sure if he and my other boss were going to make it out. Still gives me heart palpitations thinking about it.
Next post, I'll go into the days following the fire jump.
No comments:
Post a Comment