Thankful

The wildfire that started yesterday morning continues to cloud Boulder in smoke, and is likely to keep burning for days.  They estimated 3,500 acres burned by last night at 10 pm, and 1,000 homes have been evacuated.  Several structures have burned, and a handful of evacuees watched their houses and/or their neighbor's houses burst into flames as they fled- the fire moved that quickly!  As far as we have heard, the fire is about five miles from Boulder and unlikely to come into the city.  The official name for this blaze is the Fourmile Canyon Fire.

It's a good reminder that, as scary as cancer is, we're still so lucky!  Katy, Karen and I evacuated from a similarly large and fast moving fire a few years ago in Lake Tahoe, so we have a slight idea of what this wildfire is doing to people's lives.  When we were there we could drive up the ridge and watch the flames, and see exactly how close the fire was getting.  Not knowing is the worst, and once you've left you can't go back to look until it's out!  We also had DAYS to prepare for evacuation, so we had loaded the car to capacity by the time we actually left.  These evacuees had minutes to get out, and many were forced to leave even their pets behind. 

Our hearts and prayers go out to those affected, and we hope that Gold Hill is spared from the flames and nobody gets hurt fighting this awful wildfire!

Today Katy is venturing out into the world to get a hair cut.  Maybe she'll even have energy to go to the pet store, but we'll see.