Evacuation: What Would You Do?

On an ordinary, quiet Saturday night at home, we received a phone call about a nearby fire burning in the woods. We were told to evacuate immediately since the fire was close and moving toward the only road out. After living here almost forty years, we are well aware that should the road be blocked by fire we had no way to drive out. First thought: “Is this real? Is it a credible threat?” Jeanne and I agreed it was. What to grab? Jeanne loaded our dog, River, in the car. She got the cat carrier to the house. We loaded Scout inside despite his complaints. We reached for identification, passports, cash on hand, medications and warm jackets. Computers and phones were packed too. I took a nightgown and a few pieces of jewelry. At the last minute, I grabbed two small quilts I’d been working on.

As Jeanne raced the car up the steep hill, we each had visions of fire possibly blocking our exit. I thought, “We are leaving it all behind…the house, the other car, all the solar equipment, and all my quilts made over the last thirty years….”

Our glimpse of orange flames was quite sobering. We were not halted by fire. We were blocked in by all the fire fighter trucks preventing our exit to the only road down the mountain. The St. Paul Volunteer Fire Department had local fire fighters monitoring the fire. Eventually, with assistance from another nearby fire department, as well as people from the forest service, they managed to contain the blaze. This took several hours. They built a firebreak, sometimes called a double track to slow the progress of the fire. Fortunately the wind was not strong that night. The firebreak created a wide gap in vegetation, removing the pine needles and other combustible materials this fire need to grow. The firebreak acted as a barrier planned to slow or stop the progress of the fire.

For hours we did not know the outcome of this strategy. Jeanne, the animals and I sat in our car wondering and waiting. We did little speculation. We got occasional updates, but no outcome was certain. The flashing strobe lights of the official vehicles added to the tension of the scene. I finally tucked those little quilts onto the visors to shield our eyes from the penetrating flashing lights.

We had packed no food or water--a sure sign of our haste since we always take both when we head to town for any length of time. About eleven, we were told that all seemed under control and we could return home. We were assured that they would be monitoring the fire location and would call us if we needed to leave.

Relieved to be safely at home we began to relax, until we realized we had no phone or internet connection. Should the fire re-ignite, and the wind had already picked up, would anyone drive down to notify us of the danger? Without a phone connection we were vulnerable. After considering our options, we drove to the area of the fire. It was deserted. We could see a small orange flame deep in the woods, but no one was around at all. What to do? Finally we called our nearest neighbor to let them know our phone was gone. We felt reassured and they agreed to alert us if it became necessary to escape.

When Jeanne took the above photos of the fire site on Sunday morning, she did find two forest service employees working there to make sure no fire remained. (In her second photo you can see the figures, if you look closely.) That morning, she found that our phone line, which the phone company merely draped from tree-to-tree along the edge of the road, had been severed in two places. This presumably happened when the many vehicles tried to maneuver around each other on the narrow mountain road that night. It took until Thursday morning for Kinetic to restore our phone and internet services.

How did the fire start? The forest service people found burned beer cans scattered around a campfire in those pines. This seems the most likely cause. The blaze was strong enough to be seen from Highway 16 which is located below the south side of our mountain.

You’ve now read the facts. If we were again told to evacuate, I would grab this 1940s quilt off my bed since it is my favorite. Here you see Jeanne and River taken last summer. I actually started this blog to write about the feelings surrounding our evacuation, short lived though it was. But the facts, the backstory had to come first. Realizing how everything can change in a single moment is always shocking. Deep appreciation is one result of this averted moment where we could have become homeless. We wrote a note of thanks to the volunteer fire fighters who also faced danger on that Saturday night.

Jeanne and I have now weathered one more harrowing life experience together. We built this house in 1988-1989 with help from several women carpenters. Our lives are centered in this haller. We have nurtured our garden for each of those years. We’ve harvested food from this soil to sustain ourselves. We’ve been caretakers of these forested woods. We’ve rescued wild Lady Slipper plants when the deer decided they were dessert.

I’m beginning to understand that my own reactions to this “near-miss” will unfold over the next days and weeks. Today, when the wind became wild, I found myself alarmed about possible fire danger. I will turn eighty in August and have already experienced a series of life changes I’ve not expected. I know there will be more.

I recently read that well-known architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, believed that decay “was another form of growth”. Decay is certainly an essential part of Mother Nature’s plan for our world. “Change is the only constant” is another way to express this idea. I find I’m re-learning that reality which I first embraced in the 1970s when I had a 1888 Victorian house in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. But, that is another story…. Jeanne and I moved from that “nest” to build our house here in the Ozarks.

Today I’m grateful to live in the shelter of my home and family in the house and haller we’ve know for decades and long ago named Cedar Hill, a simple name for our Ozark cabin.