On our drive home on Labor Day we encountered a very scary roadside fire. Just before reaching Red Bluff there was a fire that broke out along the freeway at 11:30 a.m. We came through the fire at 11:40 a.m. just ten minutes after it started. The fire was already fully blazing and quite scary. Fire trucks had not yet reached the scene and we were driving through the fire at approximately 5 miles an hour. Visibility was not good and at times I couldn't see anything. We were engulfed with smoke and flames were along side us on the road. We could feel the heat of the flames inside our car.
I made the mistake of expressing my own fear outloud. When I couldn't see anything I made a comment, "I can't see anything, I don't know what to do!" I should have kept my fears inside me. This only scared Aly and she started crying. With Aly crying KK got scared too and started crying. I told both of them it would be o.k. and we were almost out of the fire. The bad news was 1/2 mile up the road there was another fire we would have to go through. Aly saw it too and was begging me not to drive through it. There was nothing I could do because there were no exits. We had to go through the second one. This time I knew to stay calm for my children's sake. This fire was a little easier to drive through and visibility was a bit better.
As soon as we made it through the fires we exited the freeway and ate at the first McDonald's we found. Aly told me later that she was afraid the fire was going to burn us up in our car. Poor thing.
Her fear continued the next few days. She told her bus driver all about the fire. She drew a picture at school and told her teacher. I feel so bad that she has this as a scary memory. 
Our scanner wasn't able to scan the whole picture but it only cut off where Aly wrote to Mom and Dad. In the picture she drew a car driving down the road with fire on the side of the road. She drew the McDonald's we stopped at afterwards. Clcik on the picture if you want to see the details of it and see it in a larger format.
4 comments:
Poor baby....that's so scary. Hopefully she will forget about it soon.
Unfortunely you never forget that. But you come out of it with more respect for fire.I think there are two things we have to have respect for and that's water and fire. They can both destroyo fast.My girls need to talk about this.
Oh my goodness.....I can't believe you were able to even feel the heat in your car. You must have been so terrified...I know I would have been. It's unfortunate but try not to beat yourself up about it, it's completely natural for you to be so scared...I'm sure knowing you, you did an amazing job calming the girls down. I know it must have been really hard for everyone~ On the other hand...Alyssa is such an amazing artist...I just can't believe the drawings she does and how expressive she was in this picture..truly amazing! :) Amy
Oh poor thing, that sounds like such a scary ordeal! It's always amazing how closely our kids watch us to take the lead on things and always be in control. Sometimes I forget that I'm the mommy!
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