Smoke and Fire

Thank you to all of you who keep me(and my home) in your prayers. We had a big scare today...A fire scare. Two men were burning a fire-break on the property adjacent to our reserve, when the fire got out of hand and spread. It came onto our reserve and for a while they had things under control. But you know how tricky the wind can be, it kept whipping up the fire blowing it to the right and then to the left. Fire loves dry grass, which is something we have (or had) plenty of, and it kept on burning. A few of our guys went down to help as we could see from our vantage point on the hill that things weren't "under control". But there's not much you can do about a raging fire and we also didn't have any equipment to beat out the flames. A few people came back up and brought down bucket of water and rags. The wind started blowing the fire closer and closer till it was coming up the hill to our house. Then we got really worried! ( I have to admit I was worried the moment I first saw the fire.) The rest of us at the house jumped into action and started hosing down our fire-break. The kids were so helpful they got buckets and kept filling them up and throwing it on the dry shrubs. Our house has a thatch roof so it's very easily ignited. I had the two kids so I wasn't able to help much. For the most part Kiara and I held vigil by the kitchen window and prayed while everyone was rushing back and forth. Half the home was down fighting the flames while the other half was up working on our fire-break. We prayed so hard and thankfully the wind changed directions and stopped blowing the fire up to out house. The fire eventually went through our nature reserve onto the neighboring property. In about 10 minutes in was on the next property. It kept on going....By mid-afternoon it had passed through 8 or more properties!

View from the kitchen window

The fire's burning through the 3rd property.

Most of the "fire-fighters" having a little laugh now that the danger has passed.