quail fire

Utah has had a lot of fires lately. On Tuesday I was at home hanging out with Melissa while the kids were down for naps and I got a call from Paul and he said he had heard there were fires in Alpine and Cedar Dills. I said I hadn't heard anything and he told me to look outside and see if I saw anything. I looked in the backyard: nothing. Then I opened our front door and saw this:

Oh. Yes, there is a fire. It was crazy how close it was and how much smoke was billowing.  Melissa and I sat on our front porch for at least 20 minutes watching the flames at the bottom and the smoke rising everywhere. At first when I saw it I thought we needed to leave. Then I realized it was far enough away. Then at one point the wind changed and it looked like it was going to hop over that ledge and come straight for us and I panicked. Then the wind changed again and we were fine. We saw plane after plane coming to help put it out. It was a very interesting situation to be watching something so destructive be so close to you.

The fire was named "the quail fire" becuse it was on the quail mountain ridge area. It was started by sparks from a tractor being used by a worker who called in a small fire within 5 minutes and within 2 hours it had spread up the mountain. Alpine was most affected by it, having people evacuated and even some houses burned. What a tragedy for those people but a blessing that it was not a more catastrophic event.

The weather forecasts completely changed when it rained on Thursday. Not hard enough to create mud slides but enough to give the fire fighters some help, as the fire was still burning two days later. An answer to prayers.

news articles:
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=21104059
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=21111024
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=21123910