Crazy Fire here in Porters Lake

I know it's not as big as the fires you get in California in the summertime, but it's been huge news in our area, even getting national coverage. There's been really high winds, which are only making matters worse, and the whole area was clobbered by Hurricane Juan several years ago, and there's still deadwood around that's really helping fuel the fire. Areas have been evacuated. Power was out yesterday, and even today in some areas. The fire is still "out of control". Scary stuff.

So far, aside from the power outage yesterday, we've been okay. We've gotten all of our stuff together - photos and computer stuff in a knapsack, pet food, pet carriers, etc. in case we need to evacuate quickly. Ever since Juan and our 5 day power outage that totally scarred us for life, we've been at a low-level prepared-ness for a repeat. :) We have our charcoal bbq to boil water and cook food (which we didn't have last time - we had to cook stuff on a tin ketchup tin heated by tealights - over 5 or 6 hours - oy). We always have bottled water on hand, because our well is not drinkable. Candles on both levels in most rooms, with matches in set locations that are easy to find in the dark, emergency flashlights up and down stairs, etc. etc.

Here's some of the pics of the fire clouds I took.

This is the sky in the opposite direction of the fire, so you can see how nice a day it was otherwise:


This is what it looked like, looking down my street:


Walking down the highway, I was able to get these pics:



And these were from my backyard deck:


Check out the secondary cloud that the fire cloud is trying to pop out of - that other cloud looks like a misty tarp. :)




What do you do, when you have no power, and it's summertime? BBQ, of course! Sausages and stir fry on tinfoil - that's good (power outage) eatin'!