Interesting First Day of this New Year

Our town was almost destroyed today. A huge prairie fire burned to within a couple of miles of the community, but through the combined efforts of 8 volunteer fire departments from within a seventy-five mile radius of here, and a sudden change of wind direction right at sunset, it seems to have been diverted. Our first 911 call came at 10am and we were busy from then until I left. As we began to need more resources we found that most other agencies in the county were also involved with fighting fires. I've been working with maps and information all day and had an internal image of what was occurring, but I've been in an isolated, temperature controlled room, surrounded by screens, computers, radios and telephones. It was shocking to walk out the door and suddenly be in smoke as thick as fog - mainly white but the Western skyline was glowing orange. There were two major fires and both are sort of out there still, but someone will be watching all night. I hope we win. It probably wouldn't hurt the pond very much, but it might burn down the really cool entry.