The Herriman wildfire

I think by now, most people in the Salt Lake Valley have heard plenty about the Herriman wildfire. You couldn't turn on the news without hearing updates every 5 minutes. For Nick and I, this fire hit a little too close to home.... literally

Nick and I have been happy residents of Herriman for about 2 years now. Back in March we bought a house just south of Rosecrest (the south end of Herriman). One of the reasons we liked the neighborhood so much was its proximity to the canyons. It was this proximity that gave us such a headache on Sunday.

Sunday night we left for dinner at my grandparent's house with my mom and her fiance. They picked us up around 4:00 and we headed out to Murray. We could see smoke on the other side of the mountain at that point and wondered what had started the fire. We weren't too worried about it though. Nick has lived in Herriman for years and said the mountain catches fire about once a year but they always get it out without too much trouble. So we went to dinner at my grandparents house, had a lovely evening and headed home around 8:00. By this time you couldn't even see the southwest end of the valley because of all the smoke from the fire. We were a bit worried at this point. I really started to panic when people started calling to ask if we had been evacuated. Evacuated? The fire wasn't even near our house when we left! That ride home was one of the longest rides of my life. I spent the whole time squeezing Nick's hand and praying we'd be able to get back to our pets. When we made it home, this is what I saw out our backdoor:

That is the mountain that is literally directly behind our house. Now I was worried. Nick went out to talk to the neighbors and they tracked down a police officer to ask what was going on. The officer said that the mandatory evacuation was all houses south of Mirabella Dr.... Mirabella is the street that backs up to our backyard. Literally the people behind us had been evacuated and we hadn't. The officer also told us that we needed to pack our bags because we were next.

Wow.

So, Nick came home and we started packing. At this time I was so worked up we packed a hospital bag just in case the stress put me into labor. I have always watched the news and heard stories of people being evacuated from their homes and thought "well that's awful." Never in my life did I think someone would tell me to pack everything I cared about in my car and leave my home, possibly for good. So, Nick and I spent about 30 minutes packing and debating whether we were going to leave before they evacuated us, where we were going to go, etc. We decided we'd wait until after the governor's address to make a decision. Nick, who never gets worked up or worried about anything, was pretty confident we wouldn't be evacuated. I made him put our bags and pet carriers by the door just in case. After the governor's address, which was not helpful at all, Nick decided to go out and check the progress of the fire before we made any decisions. When he came back in he just stode there and looked at me for a second. And then he said "We're leaving. We're leaving right now. Get your things in the car now." Now anyone who's ever met Nick knows this about him: 1. He's almost impossible to scare and 2. He almost never tells me what to do. His reaction scared me more than anything else that night. So, I went outside to look..... The fire had burned down so low on the hillside you couldn't even see the flames anymore. The only thing that was visible was an orange glow coming from behind the houses directly south of us. The fire was 1/4 mile away from our backyard. 1/4 mile away at the most. I was frantic. It took us less than 5 minutes to pack our cars and head to Nick's brother's house.

Needless to say that was one sleepless night for everyone. I think total I slept about 3 hours. I kept getting online to check the evacuation status. About 30 minutes after we left our neighborhood was put under evacuation. At about 4am or so the order was lifted on our neighborhood, so we were able to return home in the morning with the warning to keep our bags packed just in case. When we got home we noticed you could see where the fire had stopped. It had literally scorched and blackened the front yards of the houses in the neighborhood just south of us. It probably came within feet of setting those houses on fire.

The funny thing about this whole experience was, I was never that emotional the night we packed. Even when we walked through the house to check we didn't forget anything and I thought "I may not have a home to return to tomorrow." By that time I was on auto pilot. I don't think the reality of the situation had really set in. When I pulled in the driveway the next morning after everything was over, I just burst into tears. The relief was overwhelming. It was hard to believe I had said goodbye to everything we had: photo albums, my wedding dress, my dad's old baseball cap. In the end they were just "things" but they were still things with meaning.

Needless to say I'm very, very greatful for all the men and women who helped fight the fire, our wonderful neighbors, and all the friends and family who offered us a place to stay. I hope to never need that kind of support again but it's wonderful to know that the support is there. And one interesting comfort I took from this whole experience: everything that means anything to me will fit in my car.