The late Johnny Cash once sang, "I fell into a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down and the flames went higher. And it burns, burns, burns the ring of fire, the ring of fire." I have had this song running through my mind for the past couple of days. However, while Johnny's ring of fire referred to love and wild desire, my ring of fire thoughts were provoked by an actual fire, formally "The Humboldt Fire."
Some of you may have already heard about this fire, but we experienced it. It was quite intense and immediately straightened out the priorities in my life. I wouldn't classify myself as the most materialistic person in the world, but I certainly came away from this experience with a lesson learned on "not setting ones heart on the vain things of the world." I own a few items that when I saw them in the store I just "had to have them," but amazingly those things became completely petty when given only minutes to grab important belongings and evacuate from our home. Here's our story in a prolonged nutshell:
On Wednesday Justin was working up Honeyrun Road doing some planting. After a few hours the man of the house arrived home from work and announced that a fire had broken out in the canyon and was moving fast. Not being a stranger to fires in that area, the man went in to fire-mode and enlisted Justin's help. They wetted down the sides of the house, and then positioned every hose the man had around the house, ready to use against flames if necessary. They bulldozed weeds and brush, clearing them as far from the house as possible. As they were working firemen approached the house to escort evacuees from the area. Justin and the man hid in the barn till they left with the man's wife in tow, and then they continued working. The smoke above their heads grew thicker and blacker until suddenly they saw all the trees at the top of the ridge burst into flames. The fire began descending in the direction of the house. It was at this time Justin decided to inform the man, "Uh, my rates just went up." Thanks to some shifts in the wind and amazing firefighters, the house fell out of harm's way and Justin made it home safely with a hefty tip in his pocket (Not enough of a tip according to me, considering his life was at risk, but to him he got paid AND got to fight a fire--what could be better?!).
The next morning the fire was still burning, but was not tremendously threatening. Both Justin and I headed down to Chico for the day. By mid-afternoon Justin heard a precautionary evacuation issued for our neighborhood on the radio. He called me to let me know we should head up the hill. By the time he picked me up the evacuation noticed had been changed to an immediate threat evacuation (aka "Get out NOW") for us and 26,000 other Paradise residents. As we drove I started to write down a list of things for us to grab when we got to the house, knowing our time would be limited. Two of the four roads up to Paradise were closed and the other two were crawling with hundreds of cars, everyone trying to get to their homes to grab belongings. As we waited in one of these long lines we recognized that our time to grab things was growing shorter by the minute so we started to prioritize our already condensed list to include only extremely important/irreplaceable items. During this time a person came down the opposite side of the road announcing that Paradise had just been closed to all incoming traffic. We immediately called Justin's parents to see if they could make it to the house and get our dog, car, etc. They were already there. We read them our list, hung up the phone, turned our car around, and hoped for the best as we watched the smoke move in the direction of "Our First House."
We stayed at my mom's house, glued to the news all night. Unfortunately the wind was terrible and it made the fire spread quickly and unpredictably. Firefighters were brought in from San Diego, Arizona, Nevada, and everywhere in between. At one point the reporter announced, "[Our neighborhood] is not expected to be there in the morning." We were shocked, but stayed surprisingly calm through the whole thing. I think it was at this time that I was relearning where my priorities really are. All of my loved ones were safe, and that was most important.
The end of the story is that the once beautiful outskirts of our little town are now completely charred, but our house is still standing. Stats of the fire at this time include:
Acres burned: 23,344
Homes destroyed: 74
Homes damaged: 20
Percent contained: 90, full containment expected today
Cost to fight the blaze: 11.5 million dollars
Firefighters and personnel: 3,826
We are so grateful for the family we have close by, especially for Monty and Denise who retrieved Teva, our car, and other keepsakes (they even grabbed some clothes for us!), and that everyone is safe. Our hearts go out to all of the people who lost their homes, including the Davises and the Sterlings, two families from our church. Lastly, we give a great, big SHOUT OUT to all of the firefighters who fought for our town and our home. Thank You!!
(The picture above is the sign we made and taped to the back of the truck before we drove up to Paradise after the evacuation was lifted. Signs with similar messages are now displayed all over the town. It's amazing to see how tragedy can bring such unity to a community. To view additional photos from the fire click here.)
