So…there’s been some serious excitement over here for the past couple of days. It’s not Sally’s cabin, despite the fact that it arrived this afternoon and we did get started on it. Nope. It’s by far more serious than that. And no, I’m not talking about Sitabah. I haven’t taken her back to the vet yet, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure now that there might be a problem. At first I thought that maybe her cough was only during the night, but since I’m paying attention, I now know that she coughs every time she exerts herself. Darn it.
It’s not the arrival of our visitor, who is going to stay over for the next two week. But that’s not it either. Nope. There’s a fire raging over here in these parts and at home we had front row seats.
I kid you not. While cousin Ed and I were at the Thursday market in Marbella, big brother phoned to let me know there was a fire starting in the wilds across our valley, and that it was moving fast. Worst part was, it was two hours before sundown, meaning that if the firefighters didn’t manage to get it under control in time it would have ten solid hours to rage through a country side that hasn’t been this dry in more than fifteen years.
Here’s a shot of what I was able to see from the beach some odd 25 miles away from the scene.
Gawd, it looked impressive…not to mention frightening. Basically we spent the evening checking up on the progress, keeping an eye on things, in case we had to pack up and hurry home to start evacuating dogs. Luckily the wind was away (slightly to the side) from our property, but you never do know how that works, do you, it can shift, just like that.
Considering the market was a slow day, and considering several of the folks working there lived in the rapidly threatened area and were leaving to check if their homes were in danger, we too started packing up around 11 PM. 50 minutes later we were on our way home, not taking the beach road seeing as big brother informed us that it was highly likely that they would close that down at some point, so we went the opposite direction, being treated with some awesome views, I totally didn’t get around to photographing, because it was late, I was stressed, and well… we wanted to get home.
It was past one in the morning when we did, and it was to finding the rest of the family standing around, watching the action going on. There were flashing lights all through the valley, and I tried to take a pic, here:
but am disappointed with the result. It looked way more impressive.
Didn’t get to bed until three thirty in the morning. Seriously, I saw some really big bushfires going on the mountain facing ours. A really expensive area which is usually hidden within trees and bushes, went whoosh with such speed and ferocity, and I could see it light big brother’s face up despite the fire being miles away. Scary.
It was still going strong this morning.
Two shots during the course of the day:
Further away (thankfully) but the firefighters started attacking the fire by air again, so that helped a lot. Bad news was that most of the roads to Marbella was closed off, meaning that we couldn’t make it to the appointment at the hospital…worst of it was, the option was there that the hospital might needed to be evacuated, too, so we really hoped that Sally wasn’t stressing too much. We couldn’t ask, because we couldn’t reach her for hours on end. She wasn’t stressed at all, the nurses at the reception didn’t even know anything about the fire, and Sally said she had thought it was just a small fire near Ojen. A big relief that, in particular since she was feeling bad after the biopsy that had been far more painful than the last one.
So, keeping an eye on the smoke that swelled and diminished constantly…and had planes and choppers swarming around like bees around a hive, Sally’s new cabin arrived. We unloaded that, and in the hours that followed cousin Ed and I painted about a quarter of the wood, while grandpa and big brother worked on putting the beams of the floor down (I took some pics and will post them in sequence when it’s done) on the foundation big brother already made.
Before sundown, we took a quick tour of the damaged area…here are some shots:
Above: To the left is our mountain, all that stopped the fire from going into the valley, was the road. *shivers
Worst part is, we can still see red light behind the mountains, meaning it is still going. I gotta say I'm properly impressed with the firefighters once again, they saved lives and properties like the best!!!
Other than all the excitement, life went on as usual. There was cooking to do, plants to water, tenant to take care off (she was a little worried, but stated it would give her a good incentive to walk again)and garbage to take out...good opportunity to do that while we went out, in particular since the roads were filled with disaster tourists.
And that’s it for today. The dogs didn’t mind the tension all that much. They ate like pigs regardless. Hah.
Gawd, I’m tired…and tomorrow will be another long day.
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