Thirty Hours

It's been a long thirty hours since Terry called from the grocery store yesterday noon to tell me the mountain was on fire. It was, indeed, on fire. There is a major wildfire one ridge north and west of us in the foothills, right on the very edge of Colorado Springs. Yesterday afternoon and evening we were just blocks away from the evacuation line. I photographed all walls of every room in the whole house, opened all closets and photgraphed the contents. and we accumulated artwork and papers and computer backups to be ready to load the cars and go if we go the "knock". We did not (although I did not sleep well), but the entire town (read suburb) of Manitou Springs (just a few miles south and east of us) got knocked up at 1:30 am and told to leave their houses within the hour. I'm posting a couple pictures - the first is the smoke cloud just as the fire started (taken from our back desk), the second is the glow of the fire over the mountains taken from a ways further to the east (taken by a friend). It will likely be days to weeks until this is either contained or burned out, and we, sitting on the perimeter, will have to wait day be day and hour by hour to see which way the wind blows and if we have to evacuate our home.