This past weekend.

A wildfire started up a few miles from my parents house in the western US. Winds were fairly high and it was well above 95F, so in a day and a half it went from a sprig of smoke to 10,000 acres fuelling its own weather.

I have spent the entire weekend helping them prep their property under some extreme stress. We ripped out every bit of brush and weed from the house perimeter, cut down 6 trees that were too close, ran a tractor with a disk to start building ground fire lines around the base of their hill, and ran as many water sprinklers on the lawn and surrounding terrain and trees as we could to improve their ability to resist ignition. And on top of that have gotten them packed and their livestock and farm equipment all moved to pastures well out of the treeline.
All of this while the sun was completely obscured by smoke, to the point where I had the lights on the tractor. Hell, we could HEAR the fire from their house. It was like a jet engine was running just over the west ridge. You could see tree crowns torching 150+ feet in the air.

I’ve probably worked like 45+ hours in the last 4 days. I’m so tired dude.

Luckily, whether by sheer happenstance or force of a god unknowing, the wind has held in the right direction and the fire front facing their house has been very mild since Saturday night, and wildfire crews have had a chance to build dozer containment lines there. We’re still on a hair trigger but we are cautiously optimistic they’re going to make it through without any of their land burning.

Fuck global warming dude