Tuesday, 26 June 2007

Fire, Fire, Burning bright!

Wow sometimes you realize just how fragile you are and utterly insignificantly impotent against the natural forces of this world.
Last night as we stepped out of my room for a break from band practice, Colin noticed above the roof of the house (we were stood in the courtyard) an orange glow in the sky - we climbed onto the roof to survey the damage that was being dealt by the fearsome runaway fire.
Looking at the width and size of the fire and seeing that our little town was in it’s intended path, just left us a little muted and beyond fear, it makes you realize all you can do is pray sometimes, and if that fails come to terms with the fact that everyone’s time must come.

I know it sounds fatalistic but that’s basically what I did last night as I got into bed, said my prayers and consigned myself to the fact that staying up the whole evening wasn’t going to turn aside that fire - the brave people who are trained and have the equipment to deal with it were just managing to minimize the damage that inferno was wreaking. As the one official was quoted this morning - there’s no way to fight a fire like that, you do your best just to bring it under some kind of control.

We did manage to get some pictures on Jeremy’s camera, but I failed to put them on disk to bring in, probably because due to the fires our electricity was playing up, the lights dimmed and we’re still dimmed when I left for work this morning.
As we drove out of town the destruction the fire had and almost had wreaked was evident, ashes and charred remains of trees and whatever else that managed to have the misfortune of being in the Fire’s Path, not more than 300-400 meters from our home.

Thank God for the brave Souls that fought off the worst of the blaze through the dark and smoke and heat of the hell that last night would have been for them, may he bless and keep them, and those whose lives were lost in the ‘cause, may he take and keep them always.

2 comments:

Sara said...

Wow, that's crazy. I'm glad you are safe and God protected you from the fire. I don't think I quite understood what you were saying on the phone earlier.

liam said...

I'm not always that coherent - i guess the accent difference doesn't help :-)