late in the afternoon, around 5pm i went outside with the dogs. and i saw ashes in the yard...i thought...is Etna erupting? then i smelled the smoke. i got the dogs back in the house. went out on the street and could see thick smoke not very far from our house. so i went up on the top deck. i took these pictures from there a few minutes later.
the fires were burning about 3 houses up the hill. i walked up that direction and could see a medium sized tree on fire and a lot of other flames behind it. the fire was going back away from the street - which is what you can see in the pictures. it was very smoky and my eyes were burning.
i was not sure what to do. when i called Brad's cell, he was trying to get onto our street but it was blocked off at the top of the hill. i just got the dogs in the car and drove to the bottom of the hill. he parked his car and we drove mine back up to the house, packed up a few items - laptops, clothes and toiletries and our Bibles.
we were praying as we left (had already been praying). we both knew that it was possible that the next time we saw the house, our stuff could be destroyed. we both received an amazing peace knowing that God had it all under His control. no matter what happened, we were okay with it.
we tried to drive up the hill a little ways to see what was going on. there were big flames on the side of the road and the caribinieri started madly waving for Brad to drive up past the barricade. at that point we could not get back onto our street. Brad called several Sicilian friends trying to find out what they knew about the fires. he also talked to the police and caribinieri even though they did not speak much english. they all thought at that point that they had everything under control. we decided to go around the long way to the bottom of our street since they would not let us drive back past the open flames (i wonder why not!?).
when we got down there, we could see that the fire was worse than before - it was blazing out of control. but there was nothing we could do and it was starting to get late. luckily our very dear friends said, come on over and bring the dogs. so the dogs and i followed Brad. when we got there they had food and water for all of us. and a comfy place to stay.
Brad got a call from our friend Mario and he was talking to our landlord who was with the caribinieri out in front of the house. they were concerned about us and the dogs. so it was perfect timing because otherwise they were going to try to get in to make sure the dogs were okay. they said the house was fine and the fires were out. so we thanked God for His blessing of saving the house and that none of the neighbors were injured (that we know of).
here is something that is also amazing - in the morning, i was upset about missing my violin lesson. but if i had gone to the lesson and then stayed on base until the red cross training, we would not have known about the fire or been able to get the dogs or any of our belongings out. the dogs would have been home alone with all the smoke and fire engines going by. they would have been really freaking out. more praises to God for that...!! plus since we were with our friends and Brad had a change of work clothes, he could go right to work in the morning.
we later found out that there fires burning all day and they had skipped up the hills into our neighborhood. there were many other fires throughout Sicily. it was the worst they had seen in over 50 years. the temperature had been 115 on monday and 116 on tuesday and the island was so very dry. one of the men that works with Brad told him yesterday that he had huge palm trees in his yard that were 'burning like candlesticks'.
we read an article saying that the heat was endangering the lemon trees and some of the other fruit and vegetable crops. but then yesterday and today it has been much cooler - probably over 20 degrees. so hopefully everything will be okay.
[i was able to reschedule my violin lesson for Weds, to!!!]
