Praying for Rain

A couple weeks ago, I looked out my window, and felt like I woke up in a science fiction movie. The world was tinted orange, and "snow" was falling all around.

There's a fire in the mountains behind our house. The wind has been blowing ash all over the city. This is a picture of the hood of our car on one of the first days the ash blew in.

It kept falling for about a week. Everything was covered. The heat's been up to about 80 degrees lately. In our city, few people have air conditioning. We just open your windows & hope a breeze will cool off the house. But when we opened our windows, the ash would blow in. I was sweeping up piles of ash. And the poor kids couldn't play outside. :(

The wind changed a few days ago, and we've had blue skies again, until today. Here are some pictures I took yesterday, from the house.

The Zaca fire started on July 4, and they're hoping to have it contained sometime in September. Our local fairground parking lot has been filled with fire trucks from all over the state. Some people who live in the mountains are being evacuated, but so far, the main city is safe. Our biggest concern is the fire getting to the electric plants. Then we would lose our electricity.