Thursday, September 1, 2011

Too Close For Comfort

Right after I hit the Publish button for the FireFlies For the Soul post earlier today, my phone rang and I noticed it was the wife calling. I answered the phone the same way I always do, "Hey babe, whats up?"

What came next through the ear piece was mixture of tears, panic and total chaos. The first few sentences there was no way I could make out what she was saying, but I knew from the sound of her voice it was not good. I told her to calm down and start again.
This is what I got, "Fire! (huff, huff) House! (holy crap, holy crap) Neighbors house is burning! (come here puppy) I'm out of here! (sounds of running) Ours is next! (truck door slamming) I will call you back!"

This of course got my curiosity up a little and I decided to go ahead and leave work early and I defiantly did not break any speeding laws on the way home. 
Upon arrival forty five minutes later (I work an hour and a half away) I saw the street was lined with fire trucks and clouded with smoke.
As I drove up near the end of our road, through the smoke and the haze I saw the wife with several people around her. She was digging through the BOB handing out water bottles to other evacuees.

My first thought was "I hope they are not eating all my MREs".

A fire is one of those occurrences that I would define as "IT". We have drilled on this and our evacuation plan many times. The wife executed the plan with perfection and I got to see the Bug Out Bag at work.
I overheard many of the neighbors telling their spouses that they were going to make up a bag just like mine. My unemotional response was, "You should already have one". 
 
I am telling you right now friends, you can do all the planning and drills you want, but when "IT" happens, you have to be able to control your adrenaline so you can make the decisions that have to be made. If not, all that prepping you have done is for not. I am proud of the wife for keeping her head and taking charge of the situation.             

Through the help of neighbors and the Fire department, they were able to stop the spread before it got to my house. Not much damage on this end but that is not the case for my neighbors.


 Vinyl siding and high heat do not match.
 A Round Baler was the cause of the fire. A stuck baring caused sparks to fly and with this drought we are in, it was not good.

This picture was taking from my property line.
I will say, that was a close one.   
    

16 comments:

  1. So glad everyone is OK! That is so scary. It's been so dry here that I wouldnt be surprised if they started having fires everywhere here too. Bet its going to be a doozy of a winter...

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  2. Glad you, your family, and your house are all ok and no one was hurt. I hope the neighbor is able to replace what was destroyed.

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  3. Fire is a real fear now days especially here in Texas. They are talking about a second baling on my property for we lease it for hay. I just pray nothing like that happens here if they decide to.

    If something happens and you have time to get some of your critters out I can help house them here in NE Texas if you ever need it.

    - Genevieve

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  4. Lord knows I sure worried about you guys. You worried the heck out me with the text. Happy it all turned out well.

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  5. I wouldn't want to be anywhere within ten miles of you in a lightning storm. I figure about all that is left you haven't had happen is a direct hit on your place by an asteroid.

    Fire is the one big danger I can't do anything about. My buildings are all wood, I'm surrounded by wood. If we have a forest fire, I could lose everything. We are now in a drought status ourselves, and the woods are dry. I just hope we get some rain.

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  6. I'm so glad you guys are all right and your place was not burned. Even a small fire is devastating ...if your neighbors got by with only physical and smoke damage, they are still fortunate. I'm glad you have BOB and the Mrs had the presence of mind to grab it. GOOD ON MRS MDR! I know it was stressful but you guys were instrumental in waking up a LOT of your neighbors today. That's a good thing. If THEY all start being smarter about being prepared, they won't be needing your supplies the next time and might even be in a position to help YOU sometime.

    Glad everyone is okay.

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  7. I'm glad to hear everyone's OK and ya'll didn't get a piece of it. Tell the Mrs. "Great Job!!!" for me. Don't it make you want to "puff-out and strut" when they pull off something like that?
    YeOldFurt

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  8. Glad all is OK with you. Sorry about the neighbors.
    Duke.

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  9. Fire is our biggest concern. We do not have a local fire department. I woke up the other day to a black sky from a wild fire, made my heart stop a second, until I heard it was a smoke from a fire far from us. Still made me nervous...

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  10. Thank God everyone is ok. It is always good to have someone like your wife taking charge of a rough situation.

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  11. Thank all y'all for the kind words and comments.

    Denise - Thank you. It is a constant threat all over these parts.

    Mudbug - Thank you. No, the neighbor said he was done.

    HH - Thank you for the offer. I hope that is one favor I do not have to ask for.

    Stephen - You should see the added gray it put on my head. Thank you for your thoughts.

    ATH - You ain't whistling Dixie on that one. If I had a choice, I would not want to be my own friend. Fires and tornadoes are the two biggies for me.

    HB - I hope so. Now that the cat is out of the bag on my prepping activities, I do not feel safe anymore.

    YOF - She said thank you and she was thankful we were prepared.

    Duke - Thank you

    KAJ - I bet it did. Our fire department is over 45 minutes away. I guess they were down here in the south side of the county today for some reason. Thank goodness.

    coley - Thank you and she said thank you.

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  12. Oh my gosh MDR! I'm so glad you and your family are ok. You have made me realize our BOB's need work. I'm on it.

    Blessings,
    Red

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  13. To be P.C here, id say you were a redneck American. Richard

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  14. Red Woman - Thank you

    Amish S. - Thank you, I think?

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  15. Wow! I'm glad everything is ok. Sorry about the neighbor's house though. Ok, you got me, I'm going to get a BOB too. lol

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