Close Call

First, please see my previous post about fires to view my opinions on that. Then, let me just say again that I very strongly dislike idiots. Friday around noon, an idiot was working on a gate by himself with a welder and a saw. The sparks caused a fire, that before he could do anything since he was by himself, jumped the highway and headed west. This happened 2 miles north where we live. Then the wind changed and it started coming south too. At least 7 fire departments, the forestry service, with helicopters and planes, and two other states forestry dept., Kentucky and Georgia, with dozers battled this fire for 33 hours. Many of those guys only went home a few hours Friday night before getting called back because the fire flared back up. Some stayed the whole time. The fire got within feet of our property. The caliche road that we drive down ended up being the place they used to stop the fire in some places. We were VERY lucky that sparks did not fly over the road and ignite. These guys did a great job keeping it from jumping that road. If it had, it would have taken over several more ranches before it could be stopped. As it was, our neighbor, who we were working for, had at least half of his place burned, some of it so bad it will take years to recover fully. The firefighters saved their house and outbuildings and like I said, did a great job of keeping it from crossing the only road they really had to work off of. We can't thank them enough or appreciate them more. Rough estimates that we're hearing from the fire chief are that it encompassed around 4500 acres.

Folks, lets take a minute and think about this. If there have been fires all around lately, no rain for months, and announcement on all local radio and tv stations saying no outdoor burning or sparks because of the extreme conditions, maybe you should take heed. They are not saying all this to hear their own voices. There are reasons. And if you HAVE to do something outside, have someone as a spotter in case of a fire, with water on hand to deal with something quickly. We have been watching this guy work on this gate and fence for a month now and never have seen anyone with him, or him have any kind of water sprayer with him. At first I admired him for working so hard. Then after about a week, we started to doubt his intelligence and started waiting for something to happen. Our fire chief even said he was just waiting for something to happen with that guy out there by himself.

While they may not be able to do too much to him criminally besides give him a small fine, the neighbors that had their place burned are all lawyers, so maybe we will see some type of punishment or retribution for not using his head.

Again, please use your head! This could have been disastrous if there had been more houses in the area, but we were all very lucky in this case!