On Fire

*picture by Geoff Vaz

The wind was crazy yesterday! In Coaldale it was clocked at 146km/hr (90mph) and I'm sure that's not too far off what it was here. As I was walking out of church to help Chris get the kiddies to the car Jensen was literally picked up off his feet and blown to the ground. Aubrey almost had the same mishap but I was able to grab her in time. My music for choir got blown away even though I had a death grip on it. There was no way I was getting that back.

After choir was over and I was leaving the church a friend of mine told me to look at the ridge as it was on fire! As I walked out of the church (which was no easy feat as the wind was blowing so hard against the door) I looked toward the ridge. The smoke was billowing miles high.

Later that night we were at my in-law's home. My father-in-law kept getting phone calls from people asking for information. Then he got a call telling him to get out to corner lake as the fire had made it's way there and he could get an awesome picture. A bunch of us jumped in the car to check it out. It was pretty surreal. I don't think I've seen a fire like that so close to home. We heard that the fire had actually started out at Del Bonita. It's possible that the fire could have been started by a cigarette butt and because of the bad winds the firemen couldn't get it under control. At one point the firemen were able to set up a fire blockade but the fire jumped it and after that they weren't able to get in front of the fire because it was moving too fast.

There was another fire that started west of Lethbridge. It made it's way to West Lethbridge and many parts were evacuated. We own a condo in west Lethbridge that we are renting out to some friends so to hear that scared us a little. We called them to find out that they were on evacuation alert but that they had left because the smoke in the condo was so bad they thought there was a fire inside the condo. I read later that the fire was contained but this morning I read that more of West Lethbridge was evacuated last night.

This morning I have woken up to smoky skies. I just pray that all the people who were in the fire's path are safe and sound.