Just Another Saturday

I was going through things that I have written and found this. I had totally forgotten about the event. I thought you might enjoy reading it.

Just Another Saturday
Mar 09 '03

Yesterday there was a fire in my next door neighbor's yard. It burned 90% of their yard. The following began as a letter to my friends, but I thought it would be a great thing to share here with my epinions friends too.

I was in my kitchen when I smelled smoke -- like leaves burning, but we live in a no open fire area. I checked my house first (because my husband had been doing wood working earlier and you know men and their power tools), but I didn't find anything. So I went out on the deck and saw smoke coming from the side of my neighbor's house. I thought he was burning leaves. I came back in the house, and just happened to look out the front window -- all I saw was smoke. I ran outside to find my neighbor's yard on fire and him trying to put it out. I yelled for Alicia and we grabbed trash can lids to try to beat it out, which only fanned the flames. Then I saw our water hose, which I turned on and started spraying. The weird thing about the fire was that my neighbor thought he had it completely out beside his house, but when I went over there with the hose, there were flames licking at the side of his house. It was so windy that areas kept coming back to life.

Anyway, the fire department came and emptied their 500 gallon truck and put out the fire. Then they refilled it and sprayed everything down again to get the hot spots out.

We all calmed down and talked about the blessings that came as a result. It could have been so much worse. My neighbors were home and were on top of it quickly. I was home so my step-daughter and I were able to help. If the wind had been blowing in any other direction, the fire would have spread to multiple yards, but it didn't. It was so windy that there was a lot of trash blowing yesterday; I saw paper blowing around two connecting yards, but it didn't blow into the fire. Although flames licked the neighbors house, the force of water from the fire department's water cannon washed the blackened part off. My neighbors have spent lots of money beautifying their yard, and none of their plants, etc., caught fire. The neighbors had their windows open due to the unseasonably warm weather, but no water got into their house, and although both of our houses smelled horribly of smoke at first, it didn't last. I got to use this as a lesson on giving help even when you are afraid to my children. And finally, this shows how the Lord can take something bad and just turn it around.