Brushfire redux

Okay, I'm back. Immediately after my previous post, I left for home. I could see the cloud of smoke all the way from San Marcos, so I knew the fire was pretty big. This is the view that greeted me when I turned into our subdivision (four emergency response trucks whipped past me as I was turning in, and a New Braunfels Fire Department pumper truck was set up right to the left of this picture):



Turns out the fire was set by a moron burning trash--despite the fact there's been a burn ban in effect since before Thanksgiving. Fortunately, the main blaze started about a mile farther back than I initially reported, otherwise it would've reached our homes before I could get there. As it was, there was an emergency evacuation of the subdivision going on when I arrived. I quickly loaded my computer and some clothes into my car, while Lisa gathered photos and negative and the girls grabbed some favorite toys. Then we loaded the dogs and cats--the birds went with a friend of ours--and went to ride out the evacuation at a local McDonald's that had a playland to entertain the girls. We were able to return home about two hours later, once the fire was brought under control. Fortunately, the fire didn't approach much closer than you see above, so our home was never in imminent danger.

Early reports say that 200 acres were burned, which is far less than that which burned here last week, as well as those big ones north of us that wiped out Cross Plains and other small Texas towns in recent weeks. I can tell exactly where the fire burned, and the road to take to get back to where it started. I'm more than a little inclined to drive back there tomorrow, knock on the door of the fool who started the fire, and plant my foot about 18 inches up that moron's ass.

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