Standing in the Fire

One minute I was laughing at the girls and the three of us were piled in greenhouse goofing around and the very next minute changed quickly to fear. Amelia asked me what was in the field.

We were having some tractor work done on the property and I could see our friend jump off the tractor. I started running to the hose. When I put my head up again to look down the field I yelled to the girls to go in the house and take the animals. It was all on fire.

Lance and my dad happened to be running late on their trip to Home Depot this morning- thank God. I yelled to them “fire” and Lance came running with the extinguisher and my dad was grabbing shovels.

That wind was brutal today though. In the midst of dialing 911 and giving directions I could feel my heart sink as the fire cut through the field and made it to the neighbors haystack and barn in a matter of minutes. I jumped in the truck and raced to their house yelling for them to get out of their house and searching for their hose. When I rounded the corner of their barn I was met with a wall of fire. I turned to the neighbor and told them it’s too late and they needed to go.

I raced back to the house and ran to the field with buckets and hoses but we were no match for the raging fire around us. I will tell you three things though, three very important things. Even though the winds weren’t favorable today, God found mercy on us. The first call I made was 911. The second was to the neighbors directly across from us. All I said was, “Michael the field is on fire” and he appeared with a tractor and set to work. Michael saved our house, and as his beautiful wife was coming up the drive I yelled to her to please go sit with our children. She was wonderful to them and I am abundantly grateful. She held the line with our kids when it was chaos and I couldn’t be in there with them.

The second thing to note is that after I hung up with 911 and Michael, I started to pray. I sent 4 text messages to 6 different friends and it said, “I need you to pray.”

My feet were hot from running through the fire and the heat burned our faces. I prayed for the fire department to come quickly- and it felt like forever, and then down the driveway came to young men in a PGE truck- he looked at me through the window and said- “We saw the smoke and thought we could help.” Why he was in the neighborhood, and by the grace of God in a water tender PGE truck was a gift from God. They went to work putting water on the ground before the fire could take over our actual yard.

The fire trucks came rolling in, and Placer Co Sheriff, the prison crew, all of them. Every last one of them helped us. I’ve never been more thankful for all of them.

The third thing is this: When I got in the car coming back from the neighbors house, the song on the radio station was playing, “there was another in the fire standing next to me, there was another in the water holding back the seas.” I was scared for our neighbors today. I was scared when I couldn’t see my dad through the smoke. I was scared when Lance was running down the field. I was scared that the girls were in the house and I wasn’t there. I was scared the friend doing tractor work was going to catch fire.

Instead of letting that fear take over, I put my faith in God and said Gods got us, and I set about to do the work. No one was lost today. All humans were accounted for, and every last animal was safe. The winds might have been brutal today- they still were as we went out and checked fields for hot spots and carrying buckets to cool the earth and shoveling dirt- but God had us. My family has us and the neighborhood.

When the fire chief left today and Lance and I walked the burned fields and went and checked on the neighbors- apologizing profusely, and heavy hearted at the destruction, we were both abundantly grateful for the mercy shown on us today.

We’ve washed the spot from our bodies and our aloe on the burns and the girls are in our bed with us tonight. My prayers of gratitude on my lips. Today could have had a very different outcome, but I won’t dwell on what could have been. We weren’t given a spirit of fear, so we will meet the days ahead of us with all the work that needs to be done to fix fences and fields and the trust of neighbors.

Fires burn down a lot of beautiful things, but they also give a fresh slate. So in the clean up we will be mindful to plant more seeds of courage and joy and hope and see what springs forth from the charred earth.

To all the helpers today, and there were so so very many of you, my deepest thanks.