Great balls of fire...

Well, I think this is the closest I've ever been to a forest fire.  For those who are curious about how close I am...

Last night, we could see a red glow coming from the mountains, but couldn't see any actual flames.  The night before, I went to the beach and could see the fire right by the water.  It was very ominous.

August 20, 2003

The guy who mows our lawn made an interesting comment about all the ash falling from the sky

"At least it will fertilize everybody's lawn."

I guess there's an up side to everything.

August 21, 2003

Well, last night one of the guys in Cam's band, who lives in Kettle Valley, called asking for help to move some vehicles.  They had been given the evacuation order and were leaving their home.  Well, we didn't make it, road blocks had been put up, preventing anyone from going in.  We had stopped at the house of another member of Cam's band and could see the flames coming down and across the mountains before us.   The trees would be burning away and whenever a new one caught fire, it would just explode - they call it candling.  Overnight, the fire jumped the huge fireguard they had built yesterday.  Currently everybody south of Mission Creek is on evacuation alert (which doesn't include us, thankfully). 

I think the total number of evacuees is up to around 10,000.

August 22, 2003  -  8:07 AM