Now that we are home, I can tell the story of our exciting Thursday...
It was just another day, planning on going to Disneyland when we get a knock on the door at 6:30AM. Not going to lie, whenever we get someone at our house that early, I get a little freaked out haha. I was trying to wake Matt up to go look to see who it was. Then he got a phone call. It was Michelle. I heard through the phone "Did you see the fire?". So I shot out of bed and caught the glow out the window. I saw how big and close it was and ran and got dressed and turned on the news. I never dreamed it would grow as fast as it did.
Of course the kids woke up in the chaos and I brought them downstairs. Matt told me we might have to leave so I started packing Hailey's toys (still thinking we had plenty of time). Then I got them dressed. As I was getting Brooklyn dressed there was a knock on the door and then Matt yells up the stairs for me to grab the folder full of our taxes and stuff. I came down stairs and he told me that was the cop telling us to leave. He pulled my car to the door to make it easier and faster. When I saw how fast he was moving and how frantic he looked I started to panic a little. I put Brook in the carseat and ran back upstairs to get my photo albums and things like that. Matt quickly grabbed our big duffle bag and told me to start throwing clothes in it. When I came back down all the pictures on the wall were down and the kids were in the car.
When I went outside it was so weird. It was almost red/brown everywhere, super windy from the helicopters, and surprisingly hard to breath. We grabbed a couple jugs of water to drink because it was awful outside.
Matt flipped my car around to go down the steep driveway since it was driving away from the fire. Then I got stuck because they were trying to get the llamas all loaded. Matt guided me out and I was trying to concentrate and not freak out haha.
Once I was free I drove faster then I probably should of down the hill. I had to stop because some truck was in front of me going super slow. At the moment I was so frustrated with him because Baby B was screaming in the back and fire on our doorstep and he was driving miss daisy! Then a car was coming up the hill and the truck didn't know what to do (and I did which was odd haha). I had to tell the other car to tell the truck to keep moving. And this whole time Mia is flying around in the front seat.
When I get out the gate....which we had to wait to open (I guess the firefighters cut the cable after a while because it kept shutting on people). It was so chaotic at the bottom. There was someone with a horse and police blocking so people wouldn't come up.
As soon as I got to Matt's dad's house I just started crying (which Hailey later told me was 'ok'). It was so weird that this was all happening and had escalated so quickly.
In hindsight I wished I would have taken a moment to look around and see the fire. I know it was bad and scary, but I'll (hopefully) never be that close to fire like that again and it would have been interesting to see. Apparently it was a lot closer than I had thought. I heard Matt's uncle had to take the llama trailer through the flames a little bit or he would of been stuck.
When Matt's sister was leaving, it was under the trailer so I was so sure our house was gone. When I had heard what the firefighters knew was gone and that they couldn't see our house from where they were I was positive it was gone. Matt and I cried.
Then with the binoculars we found our window! Hope! It was a loooong day waiting for them to let us up to assess the damage. And when we finally were aloud we had to walk.
We were so lucky! It was like it hit our fence and went around. You can see in the backyard where it's burned around the fence line. If the wind had been any different, the fire could of climbed the trees that have branches resting on our roof.
It's still very weird coming up here and seeing so much of the hill gone.
.....
~hyuu!
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