Firestorm at Our Back Door

Driving home from the farmers' market in Truckee that hot, windy August afternoon on winding Highway 89 through the Tahoe National Forest, a friend and I were startled to see a tree in flames at a campground along the road. We were in the midst of a dry summer, and any fire in the forest had the potential of becoming dangerous. A U.S. Forest Service worker was standing there with a shovel, looking up at the burning tree. It was not a good sign.

By the time I arrived home a half hour later, my husband, Forest, was running down the driveway, pulling on his volunteer fireman's yellow turnout coat. "There's a fire!" he shouted as he jumped into his pickup.

"I know," I called. "I just saw it."

I watched him disappear down the long residential block on his way to the firehouse, and my stomach fluttered. Although the fire was about 15 miles away, anything could happen on a day like this.

Suddenly I smelled it. Smoke! I craned my neck to see past our white two-story home and the skyscraper pines that framed it. A plume of gray smoke ominously wafted over the mountainside just beyond the golden meadow behind our home. Many ridges sat between the flames and our house, but southwesterly winds were whipping the fire right toward us.

As the Loyalton-Sierra Brooks fire engine screamed down the road, an alarm of fear sounded in me as well. I tried to pray away my panic, but it still crept into me, like the smoke sneaking over our mountains.

Within hours a smoky, acrid haze pervaded our mile-high valley, so that even home was no longer a haven. Fire trucks streamed in from surrounding counties. News flashes reported that 25-mile-per-hour winds and dry timber were feeding the fire. A numbness washed over me. A firestorm could be raging at our back door in hours.

I hurriedly threw photos and clothing into suitcases, then commandeered our kids—Crystal, 15, Matthew, 13, and Alayna, 7. They grabbed our two cats, calico Calle and all-black Domino, and our border collie, Panda. We all jumped into my in-laws' old motor home, stored in our driveway, and in minutes we were headed to my sister Denise's home in Reno, 40 miles away. I had to escape; I could not fight another battle.

We had already been through so much in the past few years. First Forest had required surgery for a collapsed lung. Our medical insurance company went defunct, nearly bankrupting us. Next, Matthew almost died from leukemia. Exhausted from the financial and emotional toll, I had struggled through anxiety and depression—until we moved into our new home in Sierra Brooks, a rural subdivision four miles north of Loyalton. It was, I felt, a symbol from God: A better life was ahead for us.