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In Loving Memory...
~ Gogo Fatale ~


6/2/01 - 10/11/11
~ Forever the Marest of Them All ~
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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Possum Kingdom Wildfire Update

I apologize for being quiet all week.... as many of you have seen on national news, the area just northwest of my town has been fully ablaze for well over a week now, and it's not over yet. The towns that have most recently been evacuated are less than 30 miles from my house, and with a fire moving at potentially a mile a minute when the winds pick up, this doesn't give us much time to get out if it decides to swing this way. Possum Kingdom lake (I know, like many other alternative music fans, I had no idea that this was an actual place and not just an awesome song) connects to the Brazos River, which our farms backs right up to, and the damage had been unbelievably extensive. As far as I have heard, the fire is still only 25% contained, but at least the danger of it coming this way has (hopefully) mostly passed. Honestly, I barely know anything beyond the few bits of information the news has fed us - that the fire has scorched over 150,000 acres, that it killed a firefighter, that we're in severe drought - and it's been incredibly frustrating because of it. Nobody will tell us anything about the fire, or whether or not we need to worry about its location. We've had all our trailers hooked up and packed for days and days, just in case. Thankfully, we're pretty sure that we're safe. Maybe. At least the enormous clouds of billowing, hanging smoke have mostly dissipated. They've been hanging high for quite some time over the farm, but when they roll in low, we all cough, wheeze, and hack our way through the day, barely able to breathe. We had a bit of misty rain earlier in the week, nowhere near what we need, and this turned everything into a giant steamy, foggy mess. It's been a bit intense.

I'll have more updates later. Just wanted to let you all know that we are still alive and not burned to crispy pieces of bacon!

9 comments:

Barbara said...

Wildfires are incredibly dangerous. We have already had more than our share this year too.

jenj said...

Glad to hear y'all are OK up there - I was wondering about where you were in relation to the fire. We had a fire less than two miles from our place last weekend - burned 10 houses, but fortunately everyone was evacuated and the fire was contained. We're also hitched up and ready to go... scary stuff. I guess all any of us can do is hope for rain and be prepared.

tricia said...

Oh, man. Sending you all the good karma we can. Be safe.

Kate said...

Holy cow, welcome to Texas! You've had quite the spring so far.

Val said...

Long, long ago, didn't you say something about Texas being terrifying? I think that I am beginning to appreciate what that might mean.

Dom said...

So scary. Stay safe.

Unknown said...

Where is that darn rain? Stay safe and ready. It's a crazy spring.

Achieve1dream said...

Good grief! I saw about that in the paper but didn't realize you were over there. I'm glad you're okay. I'll try to send some rain your way but I don't know if my fans are strong enough hehe. :D

Sarah said...

Warm, safe thoughts to you and GoGo! Sounds like you've done all the disaster prep you can and you're stuck in the helpless phase of waiting and worrying!