911

Hello Everyone

Well an interesting day, for someone who's physical abilities are not quite up to snuff.

I was talking on the phone (the time I usually gaze out the window), and noticed the air swirling around up new the tops of the trees. I tried to figure that one out, there was no wind out side, there did not seem to be a helicopter landing in my back yard, ....so I went to check.

A minute later a huge pile of brush in my back yard ignited into flames. Huge flames shooting 20 feet up in the air, lapping away at the adjacent trees.  Ken was out in the cottage, practicing

on his Mandolin, so I went out and totally screamed at him, he came around, seeing the problem told me to call 911. I did call 911. First time in my whole life, it was hard to stay on the phone while they transferred me to the two fire depts.

Ken had hauled on hose out and was "watering" the fire, and said for me to stand back as he thought that the 4 wheeler that was in the midst of the fire, was about the blow. I said.....why done YOU get out of the way if the 4 wheeler is about to blow........GUYS>>>>

So then I tried hauling all the hoses we had up to the fire, and I was just exhausted, I realized how out of shape I am.  It seemed to take forever for the fire dept to get here, and ken went back and phoned them and said that soon it was going to take planes to put this out...

They finally got here, and through a series of hose size problems etc they got the fire under control fairly quickly. Putting it out was another issue, we had to get a backhoe in to "take the pile apart" so to spray it from below as well.

The neighbours, with all the sirens thought that something had happened to me.

The whole thing went pretty well after the fire department got there.

I guess the cause of the fire was that there were some kids we had hired to run the chipper, to chip up all the brush (we were trying to do it the environmentally friendly way) (the reason there was all this brush was that we were attempting to make our house more fire safe clearing brush within 50 feet of our house  :) They left the 4 wheeler right next to the pile of brush and the investigator figured that is where the fire came from. The kids had left an hour before the fire started.

I guess I feel fortunate that I saw what I did, when I did. If I had not bee there looking, it seems that a large part of glenwood estates might have gone. Even when the fire dept got here, they had trouble finding the place as they still could not see smoke.  it was all just flames.

A few more minutes and all my bird houses would have burned, and then our very large dog/people house...

The firemen must have thought it seemed weird a bald lady in a skirt (have been wearing skirts for....well you know..) hauling fire hoses....

So that was a great distraction for a day 

love and peace

Janet Bates

jankenb @ gmail.com