The Fire Continues...

This morning I woke up to heavy smoke coming up the valley and no information as to where the fire was. I called the Forest Ranger office and was told the fire was in Leetonia and to evacuate. As usual this information was not correct. But not knowing this I started the usual panic of what to take what to leave can I keep the cabin from burning.

I looked around the cabin and realize that even though we are in a fairly open area I have a lot of burnable stuff near the cabin. I heat mainly with wood and there is 6 cords of season wood and 10 cords of new logs in the front lawn, there was also a lot of dry brush in the ditch along the house before the creek. The hopelessness of realizing there is little you can do in a short period to change your fire risk was overwhelming. I set the sprinkler on to start wetting things down and took a trip down the road to evaluate how much time I had.

The fire was not in Leetonia in fact I drove 5 miles to Mine Hole road before I found fireman from the various departments of Avis, and Trout Run who barely knew where they were let alone the status of the fire. As a permanent resident of this woods this is nothing new when it comes to fire. The ability of the State to get information to us and volunteers is paramount to a disaster waiting to happen. We can't get local television, nothing is on the radio, the firefighters and the Forest Rangers know nothing and this places much of us and our property in danger. I am not sure how this can be solved but it needs to be addressed before lives are lost. Mountain girl, Paula, fired UP!