Fire Scare

Yesterday was a pretty scary day in the neighborhood.  I'm kind of glad that I was at my job in town.  Sometime after 1:00 the fire whistle blew in town, but I didn't think anything of it.  Then a couple of people came into the store and said they heard the fire was near Richland.  I still wasn't concerned.Then my brother called and asked how close the fire was to my house.  I got a bit concerned at that time!  Shortly after that M called while he had a minute as he was refilling our water truck to let me know the situation.  The county crew was out mowing the sides of the road and started two fires.  J saw one which went through one of our fields and was headed for the neighbor's yard and our stack of bales.  By the time they got that one out they noticed the other one which was headed north into some rough pasture land.  Volunteer fire crews from two counties as well as airplanes converged to battle the blaze.  If unchecked, it could have burned for miles and miles, acres and acres.  As it was, it probably burned 2000 acres.  M said it was such a helpless feeling to watch the fire burn through coulees and not be able to get to it.  In many instances, they would have to wait for the fire to come to them and then try to put it out.  It got within about a half mile or less of four farmsteads, ours being one of them.  They tried to keep it away from fields full of hay bales but one neighbor lost theirs.  The bales can smolder for days and then start burning again, especially if the wind comes up like did last night and today.  There was a flare up last night so a couple of the neighbors and M were out again about 11:00 pm.  He told me I had to wake him up if the wind came up, but it was "up" when he went to bed.  I sure didn't sleep well.

These are some photos that I borrowed from the neighbors.

Our neighbor's pasture looking from south to north.

They kept the fire from getting to this field of bales which is about a half mile south and est of our house.

There was some fence repair going on today along with rounding up of cattle gone astray, and smoke is still hanging in the air.  We are so thankful that no homes were lost and no one was hurt.