We're still here. Very smokey, very windy, fires are heading at us. There are several of them. The closest is in Louisville, about 8 to 10 miles away - we're in Broomfield. Unfortunately our place backs up to a large open space directly in line to the fires. The Louisville one is right in a suburban housing area, taking out houses. The Memory Care facility that my mom lived in before passing back in February is basically at ground zero. The snow storm is not supposed to show up until tomorrow evening. These winds that are driving the fires are probably the cold front ahead of it.
But at this moment, we are OK. If it gets bad here, we'll drive over to the local grocery parking lot about a mile away. The lot is large enough to be a safe haven from fire. I've got the sprinklers going in the yard - luckily it is warm enough to allow me to refill the pipes (which had already been drained). And I've moved all our hoses to the east side of the house (protected from the direction the fire is coming from). We've got gloves, hats and protective clothing handy in case we need to use those hoses to put out spot fires in the yard or exterior of the house. In a situation like this, you are pretty much on your own. The fire department does not have the resources to respond to individual house fires.
We have friends that had to do an emergency evacuation as flames hit their area. They got out barely, but couldn't gather all their pets to take with them. Hopefully their place, and their pets, will still be there when they are allowed to return.
This has been a weird year for disasters for many here on the forum. I was not worried about these fires initially since they rarely jump into the suburbs. But then I see video on TV of the houses burning in Louisville and those neighborhoods look just like ours. Same type of houses. Same landscaping. Same open space surrounding the houses.
