On June 11th the boys were out playing when around 2:30 I noticed a puff of smoke off over the hill. At first I thought it was a cloud, but it only took a few more seconds to realize it was smoke. I pointed it out to the boys and then looked for the news on my phone. I quickly found that it was a fire in Black Forest, but I honestly wasn't too concerned about it. We had had several small fires in the days leading up to this and I thought this would be another one of those. The sheer number of fires was concerning to me, but I didn't ever expect another big fire like we had last year. I was wrong.
Within hours it became apparent that this wasn't going out any time soon. By 5 o'clock the puff of smoke had turned into a wall and there were reports that homes were on fire. Reid listened to the police scanner only to hear them saying "Move back". In other words, the fire was too hot and the winds too strong that they couldn't even begin to contain it. Within 36 hours we had a type 1 incident team on scene and the fire was raging completely out of control. It took just over a week to contain the fire, not all that long in comparison to the Waldo Canyon fire last year but a lot more destructive. In all over 580 homes were destroyed and thousands had been evacuated. We were even on pre-evacuation notice and had gathered up our "valuables" and loaded the car. A strong smoke smell permeated our house two times in that week, which had me the most concerned, but thankfully both Finn and Bree seemed to handle it well.
My heart goes out to those who lost so much and to the family of the two who lost their lives, I will never underestimate a fire again. And I seriously hope we will never see another one out here again.
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