Down, down down into a burning ring of fire....

Well Ladies and Gentlemen, it appears that our sweet, small burb has made national news, and not in a good way. We live in Magnolia, Texas, the site of a raging, voracious wildfire that in 24 hours has consumed 7800 acres of land. More than 8,000 people have been evacuated and the schools are all closed for us. Don't worry (I am doing enough of that for all of us) we are safe. We happen to be on the back side of the fire. Even so, I sat up for hours last night watching the golden glow over the tree line, listening to many, many sirens, and calculating how much I could stuff into a mini-van in 3 minutes.

All the while, my sweet hubby snored away, oblivious to the threat and my fears. Well, except for the point at 2 am when I rudely poked him and pointed out that there were a lot of sirens that sounded way to close to our house. That resulted in 20 seconds of mumbling and then more snoring. Is it wrong to be upset because someone remains calm? Why didn't he share my panic? I could have used a co-hort in crisis right about then.

So the fires are within a 2-3 mile point of our house. Many of our friends have had to evacuate. The smoke has permeated our home and burns our eyes. It is dark, like a cloudy day, but it is actually clouds of smoke. Frankly, it feels a little bit like Hell. (Especially the part where the kids have no school....LOL!)

Too close for comfort. I doubt I will sleep again tonight. Fires are blazing up again all along the path it already travelled, since the brush is extremely dry and they can't put enough water on it to soak it.

Scary. Scary. Scary.