This afternoon I noticed a local news ticker come up on my computer which said that there was a fire in the foothills. Since our backyard backs right up to the foothills, I was interested and quickly realized from reading the news story that the fire was indeed practically in our backyard. The article called it the "Stone Creek Fire" and said that it was in the foothills. Since we are one of only about 10 houses backing the foothills on Stone Creek, I was instantly panicked. CJ and packed our bags and quickly raced home to rescue little Bachelor and had no idea what to expect. It sounded from the news story that no homes were in immediate danger, but we weren't taking any chances.
When we got there, we were pleasantly surprised. Our house was completely in tact and there were not giant puffs of smoke coming from our backyard. We soon saw that the fire stopped just a few doors down from our house. It turns out that our neighbors (2 houses down) accidentally started the fire. There was an oily rag that they had used to stain their deck which "spontaneously combusted". Luckily the fire spread to the North of their house. If it had spread to the South, it would have landed right in our own backyard. 30 acres were burned in this fire and our house and backyard area were completely untouched. What a relief! Here are some pictures of the fire and an exerpt from the local news: (checkout news video here:
http://tinyurl.com/6o6lfu)
BOISE - A big fire in the Boise Foothills sent tons of smoke and ash into the sky, and made some residents nervous as the flames grew close to homes. As
KTVB.COM was the first to report, the fire started at about 2:05 p.m. in the
area of N. 36th Street and Hill Road. A huge plume of smoke could be seen from
Downtown Boise and all over the area. Flames burned within 30 yards of a few
homes at one point. The fire did not burn any homes, and no one was evacuated.
It started in the backyard of a home on Stone Creek Way. The fire has been
ruled accidental. Fire investigators say a resident left oily rags on a wooden
deck. The heat caused spontaneous combustion, which led the fire to grow from
the deck into a yard and off into the Foothills.
The fire started on the deck of this home when oily rags ignited. Crews swung into action, digging fire lines, dropping water and setting back burns. Within an hour, the flames were mostly out. Several helicopters worked the scene dropping buckets of water in temperatures that reached into the upper 90s. Winds blew to the northeast at five to ten miles an hour - a fact that helped save homes, carrying the flames
away from the hillside houses. The fire blackened about 30 acres of the
hillside.
This picture was taken right outside our backyard. The burned area is amazingly very close to us.
The top of the gazebo, which is in our backyard is at the bottom of this picture. You can see how the fire was just slightly North of our house.
30 acres of our beautiful hills are charred now!
The little red car next to our neighbor's house. It is his neighbor that started the fire. It is hard to see the detail in this picture, but the entire hillside up there is charred.
A picture the local news posted....pretty cool that they had to call the Hellicopters in.
We're still hearing the helicopters flying by.
And the firefighters on are on the hill still working on containing things.
Wow! What a crazy day. :) We're just so thankful that we weren't affected by this fire. It really makes us think about poor Bachelor and being home alone in a fire zone in the summer. The fire is definitely a close call.
