Traverse Fire

As if a global pandemic isn't bad enough, 2020 just keeps on going with all sorts of horrible events, we just can't catch a break this year.

On the evening of June 28, 2020, I had just finished getting ready for bed, and was winding down, looking at things on my phone when I hear a blazing police siren coming up the main road that is right next to my house. I look out my bedroom windows just in time to see the police car zoom pass my street and up to the next street, turn left and out of sight. I thought it was weird and slowly look along that upper street to see if I can see where he might be headed, and that is when I saw a glowing plume of smoke just above the roofs of the houses across the street. From my vantage point, it looked it could be one of the houses on the  street above me on fire, the smoke looked so close.

I ran downstairs to my car to go investigate and try to figure out what was going on. I discover the hill behind our neighborhood is on fire. About half an hour before the police car zoomed passed by house, 5 teenagers were playing with fireworks and let off a roman candle that started the fire. I circle the block three times, each time I drive passed the fire, it has grown significantly in just a few seconds.

By now I am freaking out, two streets in my neighborhood have been evacuated. I am on the very last street, thus the furthest away from the fire, but the wind was howling that night and it would be so easy for a tumble weed (which we had in abundance in Lehi) or a tree branch or any kind of debris to get blown to any part of the neighborhood and put all of our houses in danger.

I drive back to my house and I see my next door neighbors all packed up and are on their way out, they suggested I do the same. People are running around the neighborhood knocking on doors, making sure everyone is aware of the fire. People driving around are honking their horns trying to wake everyone up (the fire was started around 11:30 pm by now it was about 1 am) and eventually the police would drive through the streets asking everyone to evacuate over their PA systems. I didn't take the picture below, one of my neighbors did, but that is basically the view from my front lawn.

I am very lucky in the fact that I have never had to evacuate my home before, but because of that, I had no idea what to grab or how much time I should take to evacuate. Even though my house wasn't right up next to the fire, I am on the corner of the main street, and cars were already beginning to line up in front of my house to leave the neighborhood, so I was nervous if I took to long, I would get stuck in traffic. I was also freaking out about Dinah and Louis, I had to get them in their carriers and I had one chance to do so, because if I messed up and they got away, then they would go and hide and it would take forever to get them out. Luckily, they seemed confused by my frantic energy and weren't on the lookout about being put in their carriers so I was able to sweep them up and put them in without a hitch.

I quickly grabbed some clothes, toiletries, chargers, cat food and two rings, one was a gift from my mom and one was a gift from my dad so in the case my house did burn down I would have one memento from each parent. And that was it, I don't keep my important personal documents at my house so I didn't have to worry about those, but I did complete forget about my computer. I will now be keeping an evacuation list handy of things to grab in an emergency.

This was the view as I drove away.

As I drove my phone was constantly ringing with friends calling to make sure I was able to evacuate and had a place to go. I felt so loved and cared for, and couldn't believe the amount of people that were checking in on me.

Because I had the cats and because of Covid, I couldn't ask any of my friends or family in Utah County if  I could stay with them. They all have pets of their own and most of them are high risk for Covid. So, I asked my parents if we could go to their house and quarantine in the basement, their house is big enough that we could each have our own space.

Dinah and Louis were beyond confused at this point, but seemed happy that our little drive didn't end up at the vet, like it usually does. Another thing I totally forgot about while panic packing was kitty litter, so Bethy was so sweet to drive some over to us even though it was the middle of the night.

After hours obsessively checking social media and the news for updates, the three of us finally settled down enough to go to sleep.

The next morning I had to drive back down to Lehi to care for some clients. My mom offered to go with me to check on the status of my neighborhood and house, so she got to come to work with me. She loved it, and Snow fell in love with my Mom, she followed her everywhere and begged for pets.

After our morning work visits, we headed to my neighborhood. Police cars were blocking off the entrances and were only letting residents into the neighborhood. The fire was mostly contained at this point, but not all the way out. Luckily no homes were burned, the only property damages was one corner of a fence got singed. Firefighters said while they were trying to fight the flames to save the homes, it wasn't looking good, the wind was out of control and was fueling the fire at an alarming rate and they were convinced it was going to claim some houses. But all of a sudden, the wind direction completely changed and drove the flames away from the homes, they said they hadn't ever seen anything like it.

We drove along the top street of my neighborhood to see if we could notice how far the fire came down the hill.  It literally came right up to their backyards. We were expecting some rain during the next couple of days, so the new concern was mudslides, so the city had provided some sandbags for people to put along their backyards. A lot of my neighbors were out doing that while we drove passed, luckily mudslides were never a problem.

Then we went to my house to check it out. Even though there was no fire damage to worry about, we were concerned about smoke damage. Sure enough, right when we walked into my house, we were hit with a very strong smoke smell. There were ashes all along my windows and doors and all over in my garage. I smelled my blankets and pillows and clothes and none of them seemed to have any smoke damage, so luckily it only seemed to be lingering in the air.

We went out on my balcony and saw the firefighters and police had set up camp at the elementary school and had created a helicopter pad on the soccer field.

I stayed at my parents house for three days to allow some time for the smoke to dissipate. I would stop by my house everyday afterwork and do some cleaning. I cleaned up all the ash with vinegar water and sprayed all my fabrics with watered down vinegar as well. Then I bought a couple of air purifiers and let them run, on high, for a couple of days to help clear the air.

Meanwhile, the cats got used to life in my childhood bedroom. The window has the perfect view of my parents' bird feeder, which entertained them for hours.

On my first night back at home, Laura dropped off the delicious, homemade meal for me. She is so thoughtful. It was so nice to not have to try to figure out something to eat since I hadn't been shopping in days and was pretty exhausted from commuting to work from Salt Lake twice a day, and cleaning the house and also just emotionally exhausted.

A few weeks after the fire, my neighborhood put on a little thank you ceremony for the firefighters and police offers that saved our community. My front porch had the best view of all the festivities.

These photos were  taken two weeks apart.

What. an. experience. 

I know sadly my experience isn't uncommon, the summer months in Utah and California are filled with fires and evacuations. We were so lucky and grateful that none of the houses in our neighborhood were touched by the fire, that often isn't the case. This was a good learning experience for me, I did a lot of things wrong in my panic because I wasn't prepared, I never thought I would have to evacuate. But 2020 has given my not one but two opportunities to learn about being prepared. First with the earthquake in March, which I didn't have to actually evacuate but I panic packed up my car and was ready to leave in case another earthquake hit. And then a real evacuation with this fire. Now I'm off to update my food supply and update my evacuation grab list, thanks 2020, I guess this is life now!