So I was thinking about this is as in bed last night, as it took me many hours to get to sleep, all the adrenaline going from having my house almost burned down, and I was thinking about how the good things in life generally occur fairly slowly and uh and and happen in a planned fashion. They unfold that way, and getting married, having kids, all those kind of things that the impactful good things happened, vacations or whatever they are. You see them coming, you plan for him. It's arigned
in that direction. Finally you get there. The really awful things that happened in your life seemed to come out of the blue and are often over in a couple of seconds or minutes, and you spend the rest of your life thing and what the hell was that? Or I should have done this or whatever, and it you know, horrifying accidents, crimes, all that sort of stuff. They unfold so quickly. And we had that happened with a fire
on our property yesterday. We live on twenty acres and we live in a part of the country where it's you know, incredible dry grass. We have basically the same landscape as they did up in Paradise. California where you're You heard about that town getting wiped out last year and all those people dying, and um, and everybody's very careful about it, and there are rules to follow and all that sort of stuff. But you know, you just always assume it's gonna happen to somebody else. And we
don't know how this started. Um, still haven't figured that out yet. But I'm laying in bed with Henry, my youngest God, getting him to sleep. It's about seven thirty, coming off a medical procedure the last couple of days. He's on a lot of medicine. I'm hanging out with him, and my son Sam comes in the room and starts waving his arms and I said, ship, why I didn't know what he when he needed? You know, the dog
is Pete on the floor or whatever. He's like waves And I get up, get up quietly as Henry is about to go to sleep and come out and he said, the fields on fire? Said the what the fields on fire? So I go out the door and I see over and there's a lot of smoke over there on the
on the on the front of our field. Um. And uh, but but you know, looking manage bullish, not good because you know, I've heard about how these things can spread and whatnot, and it's windy, and you know this is gonna be a crisis, and uh, and I start jogging toward it, kind of thinking, okay, what am I going to do about this? Exactly? And I'm thinking about where a hose bibbs and where hoses and what can I turn on and off? And how big a deal is this? Exactly?
Another and I said, have you called the fire department? And and Laura's on the phone right then, Yeah, I'm on nine one right night. I've called the fire department and sort of say okay. So I'm thinking, okay, I need to and I start jogging over. Well, I could get a hose. I turned. I remember I turned. I think I said I could get that hose in that hose and hook come together, maybe it would reach part. And then when I turned back around, it's ten times
as big as it was twenty seconds ago. In that amount of time, it was okay, this is full on. Oh okay. So then I'm I realized, okay, the fire department is going to be coming, and I'm thinking they gotta get in some gates. And I jump in my truck and I'm going down. I'm gonna open up gates so they can get in the property somehow because they wouldn't know where to drive in. And uh. And by the time I get in my truck and I come on the driveway, it's twice as big as it was
a minute ago. And it's just so much smoke everywhere, and it's so hard to see and even have any idea what's going on and how big the fire isn't when I get around to the front of the property, I get on the other side of the wind, I can see how big it is and it's it is. It is quite a large fire. Um it probably covers a quarter of an acre at that point. And um uh. I get around and the fire people start arriving, Thank God. And I mean, this made all the difference in the world.
If I lived a couple of miles down the road, I probably wouldn't have a home. I live a couple of golf shots away from a volunteer fire department, and they got over there with trucks pretty damn fast. And they are really good at what they do, so it must be one of those volunteer places that staffed. I don't know. I didn't I didn't nail down how that even worked, because usually they usually they blow a whistle.
We hear the whistle all the time, and people come driving in who are part of the volunteer fire apartment and they go do their thing. I don't know if there are people already there, or if they got that there that fast. I don't have the idea. I know one guy is a neighbor of ours, um that I had never met before. He later said to my wife, he said, yeah, My wife said, I think it's the place that's got the goats. We gotta get over there.
They got a lot of goats. Um But Laura had run around and opened the gates for all the animals, and um Uh was gathering up stuff. And I went over and started to trying to deal with the fire a little bit. But but and it was moving so fast. It was so loud, that was one thing I had. It was surprising to me. It was just crushingly loud,
like you couldn't yell and be heard the fire. It was just a and it moved so fast across the field and got to this line of trees we've got along our really long driveway and these green, well watered trees just turned into bombs, just flame bombs. It's just it was just it was like, how is this even happening? And I thought, Laura's got to get out of here. I ran back toward the house and realized she already gone.
She had the kids and the dogs and a goat in my suv and had already driven down the driveway. I found out later through smoking flames because the flames are going across our driveway and uh, and got out of there, and the kids are screaming and they were afraid I was gonna die because they didn't know where
I was. But there was one point where I had I had gotten a long hose over and I was spraying on the field and the trees that were on fire, trying to keep it across our driveway because I just felt if it crosses our long driveway, it's we're We're doomed, which turns out the fire department said, yeah, if it had gotten across your driveway, I think it wouldn't have
stopped until it got to road. I'm not gonna give the name, Like three properties down and a mile down, he's I don't think we'd have stopped it until it got down there if it had crossed your driveway. And I'm standing out there at the hose and I'm just trying to get closer and closer, and it's hot, I mean,
the flames are hot, and I can't breathe. And once the winds turned and I got covered with smoke and I kind of put my head down and I'm holding the hose, and then I realized I can't breathe anymore and I gotta get out, and I didn't know which direction was out. Then I'm kind of stumbling around and everything like that, and it's just black and I looked down at my shoes are part of my tennis shoes are melted, and I'm trying to figure out how to
get out of here. And then I just to stumble far enough into and I'm coughing, and I got the hose and everything like that. Well then this fire chief vehicle comes comes flying down the driveway. He just comes out of the smoke, which I later realized that was probably the scariest thing that happened the whole night, the most danger we had, because my wife drove blind down the driveway in the smoke, and the fire chief told me, he said, I just took a he just I took
he said, I took a flyer. I didn't know how long your driveway was. Were was on the other side, but I couldn't see anything. If they had at the same time been going thirty five minur and hit head on, that would have been that That was the biggest That was the biggest opportunity for for disaster right there, I mean, and and it was three minutes apart, maybe at most. I don't even know how long any of this took. I think the whole thing lasted fifteen minutes, but it
seemed like a lifetime. But when I was in that smoke with the hose, I had I've only had that feeling a couple of times in my life where I thought this might be it, this might be it, this might actually be And I know that's what people think before they die. If you've ever read The Perfect Storm, there's a whole bunch of people that survived drowning. Some of them die and come back to life, and Jesus like and uh and or think they're gonna die. And
that is what people think before they're gonna die. Wow, this might actually be it? And then it is it. People you know died That's what they were thinking before they died. Anyway, I was thinking, this might actually be it, This might actually be it. And then and then and then when I got out of the smoke and was able to to get enough air to breathe, and I thought this might act. We might actually lose our place here.
This might actually happen here. Um uh and and and you know, and I was kind of at first, I had a bit of a feeling of what do I grab? What have I gotten? That? It's just there's no time and what the hell difference doesn't make anyway? Um, But I got the hose on the trees and stuff like that, and I feel like with the hose, I will tell you, if you ever one of these situations, a hose does a lot more good than I thought it would. I was thinking, is this ridiculous? Is this gonna do any
good against this roaring fire? And it's just a regular garden hose. It actually was making a dent, I could tell. So it's worth it if you if you're ever in that situation, it would have catching on fire. But no, it's not worth dying over, but if you can safely do that. But I think I kept it from spreading
that direction. And then the fire cruise with their big trucks and tankers were coming from the other way, and eventually they got on top of it and and and got it out, and it kept popping up various places, and we'd run around with hoses and try to put it out. And I don't know how many vehicles there were total total there at the end, eight ten vehicles,
thirty people, something like that. How much you burned total, these folks, It was two acres, which you know, if I heard on the news about fire, two acres, that's nothing. Two acres. And the thing is it's on fire at once. Yes, two acres on fire at once is a lot of flame and a lot of heat and a tremendous amount
of smoke. Laura showed me a picture she took from the fire station of our house, and I thought, holy cow, that's what it looked like while I was inside it, and it was, you know, it's just if it had been a windier day. And I told the fired guy, I said, I think if we had gotten at this ten minutes later, it had been over he said, oh yeah, ten minutes later, there would have been no stopping it. Yeah, it's just amazing stuff like that that happens in your life. Well,
growing exponentially, like you're describing, ten minutes is forever. I was talking to the fire guy later. I said, I do broadcasting for a living. I said, if there's anything I could do where like I go give speeches to homeowners or something like that, and explained to him like I thought, I knew how fast fire moved, and know
what a big deal you have no idea. It goes from it's a little fire over there in a corner too, you can't control it in a blink of an eye, and then it's you're gonna lose everything you've got in ten minutes. Yeah, it's just it's amazing. And it was a windy night, but nothing compared to the kind of wind we often have. And there's another lucky thing. If it had been one of those really windy nights, no
stopping it, no no freaking chance. And there were goats running around, dogs running around, and I don't know what we're gonna do. I've got to ask you. Laura grabbed the one goat, did the other goats resent that are there going to be goat morale problems? Is the one goat gonna be looked down upon by the other goats? Yeah, and I think it was one of those. Here comes the king of the goats, they'll say, is the one goat.
She didn't even know. She didn't even know what she was doing at the time, just like throwing stuff in the car. They saw a living thing and grabbed they couldn't get ahold of the dogs. Dogs were running a like crazy, and Sam tackled one of the pugs and and they got and got it in the vehicle and they're all screaming and crying. And I'm glad she took the initiative to drive out when she did, because it it it got so much worse so fast. I ran back to the house and say, you've got to go now,
but she was already gone. Thank god. Um, I'll be damned. That's something I can't imagine. I can't imagine what it looks like if it if it gets bigger than that, because it was. It was hellish, just hellish. It took me so long to calm down from that. I can't imagine near Mrs are so I've almost had motorcycle rex before where I had to pull over and sit down on the curb for a while to like gather myself before I could drive on. And this was like one
of those. Well, and you went to sleep in the very place where you know the craziness had happened, right, Oh yeah, so yeah, that's man. You sleep with one eye open, and both years I did, I had the shades open, and I kept waking up looking out the window to see if it started back up again. And oh god, it was something. It was absolutely freaking crazy. Those volunteer firefighters though they were, they were good at
what they did. And thank God for him. And I don't know if I send him a fruit, booquet or gift cards. I don't know what you're supposed to do in that situation, but holy cow, without them might have been doomed with I mean, without a doubt. Yeah, yeah, that's noble work man, it's your firefighters. Oh yeah, yeah, Wow, Well glad everybody's all right? How still standing? Huh yeah? Yeah? And uh we I got a more that burnt to nothing. We had a but some boxes for ups had delivered,
some big boxes full of stuff. Laura is not sure what was in him. She's gonna have to check the tracking wherever they're just gone. There's no evidence that they ever existed. And I had a more parked over there, like a string more. It's like a six hundred dollar more or something like that, and it's just some of the frame is there because those fires get so hot this metal and it's metal. They get so hot when
the wind's bowing, and it's just it's just gone. I don't know if I'm gonna make a claim on the insurance or even try. I don't I don't know. I haven't figured any of this out yet, right uh Like, Like I kept telling the kids as we were going to bed and try trying to calm down. You know, everybody's fine. Everybody's fine, and that's that's fine. We buy we get new stuff. If everything disappeared and burned down, we'd get new stuff. Yeah, it'd take a while, but
everything the important things. Everybody's fine. Next family lecture on fire safety, they'll have attentive listeners. Feel like yeah, no kid, yeah, yes, I don't know what. You have a giant tanker truck parked on your property. It's excellent advice that might be if you could afford it, good lord anyway, or just live on rock. Nothing would rock. I don't know. I don't know how long it'll take me to calm down from this. Like my heart, I feel like it's still
my heart rate is still elevated from it. I did so much running around a man at my age and poor shape, running from here to there and getting another hose and trying to get it together and stuff like that, and I just I'm covered and smoken, my shoes are hot, and he's, oh, it's freaking crazy. It's good you didn't have a heart attack. Don't don't bother with a stress test at the cardiologist. There's no need for one.