Four years ago this week, our home burned to the ground.We weren't in it; in fact, we had just sold it to a wonderful young couple expecting their first baby. But we hadn't been gone long, so it felt very personal. All our beautiful hibiscus bushes, my treasured stainless steel Viking range, the red flowered wallpaper, the backyard where we celebrated our daughter's first birthday. It was all ash.
Making it even worse, it wasn't just our house. Our entire neighborhood went up in flames (that's our street in the picture to the left), a casualty of the Cedar Fire that was the worst fire in California history.
Until today.
Fall is fire season for Southern California. It's both expected and dreaded, the same way tornadoes are expected and dreaded in the Midwest in the spring. But the fire burning out of control today in San Diego is a monster. More than 250,000 people have been evacuated. Winds are whipping along at 45+ miles per hour. The landscape is incredibly dry. The fire is zero percent contained.
And it's expected to get much worse before it gets better. Said Sheriff Bill Kolender: "This fire will probably be the worst this county has ever seen -- worse than the Cedar fire [of 2003]."
Unbelievable.
Of course, I'm going to be glued to the Internet today, watching the live stream from my old station.
More later, I'm sure.
Hi Kelly,
ReplyDeleteJust doing a little blog jumping tonight and ran across your blog. I just had to comment because my sister lost her home a year ago in June. They (Praise Him) were not at home at the time. They had gone on a weekend vacation. So they were left with only a few days worth of clothing and ect. It was the hardest thing I've ever done standing there so helpless watching it as you said turn to ash. To see all she owned at the time sitting in a small corner of my house. God is good...they survived and God gave their family and friends an opportunity to give. They just moved into their new home only a couple of months ago! Yeah God!
It's late so I plan to come back by and visit more.
God bless,
How awful (the whole thing: the fire in your old house...the current fires...the evacuations and predictions). I can understand why it was so sad to lose your house even though you had already sold it. I drive by my old house sometimes but just seeing how they've let the grass die and never water the lilac bush that we babied from a tiny sapling breaks my heart. I can't imagine if the house were turned to ash.
ReplyDeleteThese fires are awful, but God is good and He uses things like this to help refocus us. Stresses from the day don't seem as important today. It is also exciting to see God at work in the darkness. There has been a great outpouring of support from those who are not in the line of the fire. Donations are pouring into evacuation centers and churches are stepping up and offering their services. We live in exciting and scary times.
ReplyDeleteI'm glued to it too - it's just awful.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, this picture shows an entire street that is devasted with just one house standing. This fire was so different, it would burn one house on one street and then move on. There are even some houses that have the car in the driveway untouched but the house that it belongs to is gone. The winds were so bad that night that they could not control the fire.
ReplyDelete