****The National Weather Service In Wichita Has Issued A Red Flag Warning For Extreme Grassland Fire Danger.****
A Red Flag Warning: A Combination Of Strong Winds… Low Relative Humidity… And Warm Temperatures. This Will Create Explosive Fire Growth Potential.
Any Fires That Develop Will Likely Spread Rapidly And Become Very Difficult To Control.
Kansas is a windy place. Especially out in the country. We get fire danger warnings a lot, they are not uncommon at all. But, its actually been raining lately, how likely would a fire be?
We headed into town Saturday to run some errands. Windy as it was, it wasn’t cold. I asked Tom to put our three dogs in the barn kennel. I didn’t want to be the only one to kennel them up in there and Tom hadn’t yet put them up in the barn himself. Mind you, our kennel is a three room affair; one room inside the barn, a whole 10×10 horse stall and also a outdoor run complete with beds, extra special yummy chew toys and an up close view of the horses and donkey to pass the time. A veritable canine daytime getaway. But given the choice, all of them would rather go for a ride in the truck rather with us than go to the barn kennel.
We left for lunch. Then we were going to run some errands.
Technology via a web camera allows us to keep an eye on our barn while we are away from the farm. Just after ordering some hot and sour soup I noticed pretty quickly, the dogs were not where they were supposed to be. “Tom, could you have neglected to latch the kennel door?” He considered that a moment and then allowed that was indeed possible. We quickly finished our meal and changed our plans. I would head to my parents’ home, take my mom grocery shopping and also borrow her car to finish the errands. Tom would drive the 30 miles home and make sure the dogs were safe and sound, and collect me later in the day.
Not exactly ideal. Every trip into town and back home is a bare minimum of 60 miles. Time and the cost of gas add up quickly. But our dogs are part of our family, and we simply don’t allow them to be outside unsupervised.
When Tom arrived home, he called to say all was well and the good dogs were waiting nicely at the house. I took my mom shopping, finished my own errands and much later in the day, at 4:30pm Tom arrived at my parents’ to collect me. We headed home.
Except I forgot one item. And we had to make one more stop and get it. Then, Tom took a very circuitous route home twisting and turning around dirt roads and plowed fields and the river, just for a change of pace I suppose. The wind was ever present during all of this, and getting stronger, whipping up the dirt road dust and blowing the clouds about. Finally we were on the last long straight leg of the road home. I watched the sky as we drove, the colors and shapes of the clouds were mesmerizing… when suddenly Tom asked, “Is that smoke up ahead?”
Um…no. No smoke. I had been watching the clouds and sky closely. Visibility was excellent. There wasn’t thing like smoke anywhere at all to be seen. We drove on, we had about 8 or 9 miles to go.
(Why was Tom seeing smoke that was not there?)
We drove about 5 or 6 more miles and suddenly, we both actually did see smoke, but it was very white and faint and still far away, and it was not very high in the sky, the wind was blowing too hard for it to get up over the tree line. What was up ahead was nothing any human eye could have possibly seen several miles back. It was too small and behind miles of roads and trees. Sure enough we could see fire now. There it was, a brand new, just born grass fire and it was marching purposefully towards two small houses near the road. At the moment, it was a baby fire, just a handful of minutes old, but it was spreading quickly.
Any Fires That Develop Will Likely Spread Rapidly And
Become Very Difficult To Control.
We saw no one around. Tom parked the truck along the road and got out to knock on doors while I called the fire department. The fire was getting closer to the houses as I talked to the dispatch person. “How close is the fire to the house?” The man on the other end of the line asked. I looked over to see Tom walk between the fire and the first house “No more than 50 feet.”
“We’re dispatching units from Augusta” he told me. “Please stay and wait for the firemen.”
Augusta was 12 miles away. It would be at least 12 more minutes before help arrived.
I stayed with the truck. Two of our dogs were in there and smoke was all over the road by that time. I wasn’t about to leave them there alone. Tom had moved on to check the second house. No answer at either dwelling. He emerged through the smoke to come back to talk to me. “No people anywhere. But, there are two dogs barking in the blue house. The doors are locked. The flames are starting up the walls.”
Hurry up firemen.
And then there were sirens. One little truck scooted quickly into the yard of the blue house and started spraying water right away. Good thing they could drive right up to the little house, it was officially on fire now, on the back side.
Explosive Fire Growth Potential.
Tom got into the truck. The smoke was starting to get to all of us. My eyes were burning. He described what it was like near the houses. “This fire was really strange. It was going in all directions. Even with the 30 mile an hour west wind, it was expanding in all directions. It was even moving into the wind.”
In no time they had the fire under control. The whole burning event was probably start to finish somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 minutes. No owners to the homes ever arrived and while I watched events from the road, a single black pickup truck drove slowly by. More fire units then arrived, more firemen. Soon there was only smoke. Everything was over. We went home. We left our smelly smokey coats in the garage and took showers to get the smoke out of our hair.
What an interesting day.
I thought about all of the events and in my mind the universe completely orchestrated the timing of our travels to have us arrive in front of the homes and the prairie grass fire just in time to call the fire department to stop the blue house catching on fire and maybe taking the lives of the dogs inside. Every single event altered the course of the future. Neglecting to close the kennel, taking the odd route home, even forgetting the one errand item all brought us to the exact point to discover the fire and summon help before both of those homes burned to the ground. If we hadn’t had all of our delays it would have likely been the black pickup truck that would have made the call to the fire department. He would have had to report the blue house already on fire.
But as the excitement and adrenaline and smoke faded from the day, I found myself focusing on the moment in the truck when Tom first mentioned smoke. I asked him more about that moment. What exactly did he see? There was no actual smoke to see when he made the comment. He said, “What I saw, was exactly the size, shape, color and placement of the smoke when we drove up on the scene. I just saw it miles before we got there.” Like an energy overlay? “I suppose so, yes.” Do you remember ever having that happen to you before? Seeing something energetically before actually seeing it physically? “No. That was the first time.”
There were some wonderful events to the day despite the damage to the houses. The blue house dogs were saved…we are most grateful for that. Our extra driving revolved around our own dog’s safety, but helped other canines instead. I think there is also something truly extraordinary about the energy in this land, in the “neighborhood” in which we live. If you search this blog and read Tom’s Oriole story, you might be interested to know that wonderful event happened on the same stretch of road, somewhere between the sighting of the energetic smoke and the actual prairie fire. But the thing I am most pleased to note is that Tom’s intuitive and psychic sense continue to develop and evolve. He now truly knows what it is like to see something energetically before it even has a chance to materialize physically.
These ways of knowing and seeing are becoming more and more available to all humans who live on the planet, not just the special “psychics” among us. Your imaginative and intuitive sense is evolving too. Pay attention. You too can see energy. One way to to start is simply by believing that you can.
