Fire!

After the early morning fire reports, we wanted to go to the hills to check on my Grandparents' homesteading cabin we are restoring. Decided not to drive in and risk being caught there. We didn't go closer - no sense in adding to the worries of the firefighters.

This is looking directly west. The small white dot in the center foreground is the District 60 school. The small white dot in the left middle, surrounded by trees is the homestead.

Here is a zoom into the cabin, blurred by smoke. This was about 8:30 in the morning on March 29.

We got a call shortly before noon that the fire was threatening the home place, so loaded up to head north to make a stand - thankfully, dedicated firefighters had already made a stand.

The drive way into the home place. You can see where the fire skirted to the east.

North on the Paxton Road. At the bottom of the hill is where you would turn left to Bucktail (Arthur), or right to Sutherland. This would be the furthest north-west of the "Horseshoe".

Looking north from the home place driveway. Everything north of the road is burned, even if it is not black. The wind has already blown the soot away.

he pivot just north of the home place. You can see the pivot corner windbreak has burned, and the fire skirting the pivot on the east.

Burned ditches.

Drifting sand from the fire.

The pivot corner that has burned. Not a total loss, however, we received a call on Monday that the fire had reignited in this windbreak and we lost much more of it.

South on the Birdwood, you can see firefighters mopping up hot spots in the background.


Our neighbor (in the hills) lost about 2500 acres of grass, but it could have been much worse. He and his family went out about midnight to fight the fire where it started, near Bucktail. At that time it was heading straight south. Then the wind changed and it made a run to the east before turning south again. By the time he made it back to his house, other firefighters had made a stand there and saved his home (the fire got as close as across the road) and his bale pile. So many lost so much, but the firefighters also saved so much.