Cedar Fire One Year Later

It was a year ago today that I did what I never thought I'd have to do, evacuate my house as a huge fire approached. I will never forget that morning. It started when I woke up at 5 AM and for some reason looked out my window, where I saw what I thought was a fog bank. I opened the door and it was warm outside, and I thought, "that's strange, how can there be fog when it is so warm?". So I went back to sleep. Around 6 AM I woke up again when I heard sirens nearby. During the next hour I heard about 20 fire trucks drive by, and still I just wanted to sleep. Finally I got up at 8 AM and after looking outside again I realized that the fog was really smoke, and it was getting thicker and closer. I turned on the news and every station was broadcasting pictures of the fire as it was burning up my neighborhood - about 4 miles away. Then the news channels said everyone south of the street I live near by needed to evacuate. I live about 1 block north of that street, so I decided it was time for me to leave. Not knowing what to pack, I took my computer, photo albums and a bag of clothes, threw them into my car and headed north on the freeway. It was an eerie site to see the southbound lanes filled with cars not moving, because the freeway was closed. Only a few cars were going north with me.

Not knowing where to go, I called my friend Mark and said, "hey, I just evacuated my house, can I come over?" So I spent the next two days at his house, sleeping on his couch and watching the local news, not knowing if my house was burned or not. All I could do is call my home phone, and if my answering machine answered, then I knew it hadn't melted into a pile of goo. When I was finally allowed to return home, my house was there. The air was thick with smoke and ash, and the smell of smoke was inside as well. I didn't want to spend the night there, so I drove back to my friends house for a second night on the couch. As I drove away, I saw that the fire burned on two sides of my complex, burning some trees within a few hundred yards of my home. A few months later I found out why our neighborhood didn't burn. My neighbor sprinkled some holy water that she keeps on hand. Either that, or it was the two neighbors who didn't evacuate and fought the fire with a garden hose. My guess is the winds were blowing the fire to the south. No matter, I'm glad my precious action figures didn't go up in flames.