Close your eyes and think about fire for just a moment. Think about the color, the smell, the heat, the intensity of it. Now think about that same fire almost surrounding your home. It is not a very good feeling is it? That is what happened to me in the summer of 1980. My dad and I were in the van, about to deliver a piano to someone. My parents owned a music store in Brainerd and I frequently went along to help with deliveries. My dad had just got a mobile phone put in the van a few weeks before. At the time, I couldn’t understand why something like that was needed. Talking on the phone while driving; how absurd. The phone rings and it is my mom. I could hear my mom yelling to my dad that the woods were on fire. Apparently …show more content…
We had a piano in the back of the van, not strapped down or anything. My dad was always a very careful driver when delivering a piano or organ and never saw the need to strap something down. We would just wrap a moving blanket around one or two of the castors and away we would go. When my dad realized what my mom was saying, he hit the brakes and the piano flew forward, hitting the back of my seat. After asking if I was ok, which I was, my dad hit the gas. The piano then went backwards in the van, one of the legs snapping off and the piano fell over. Luckily it never hit the back doors or it would have gone flying out, just like you see in cartoons. We were driving faster than I had ever gone before. In fact, we were driving so fast, we literally passed a fire truck on its way to our …show more content…
We could see the house and it was not on fire, but the smoke was coming from all around it. Someone had brought a backhoe in and we could see it about 200 yards from the house. They were digging a trench about 3 feet wide and was going in a semi-circle around the house. The fire chief later explained to my dad and I that the trench should stop the fire from advancing to the house and that overall, the fire was not really that big. We had had 4 or 5 days of rain just the week before and the fire was not all that big, just burning the dead leaves on the ground more than anything else. The fire chief further explained the fire was actually a good thing. I must have looked at him funny because he started laughing. He further explained that landowners would sometimes set small controlled fires, scorching the ground and that the following year, grass, plants and even wildlife would come back stronger than ever. That was the case with our fire. Days after the fire was out, my mom, dad and I walked along the trench that had been dug. Everything was black with few exceptions. I thought the fire chief had been pulling my leg earlier, telling me that things would be better than ever before. I think even in my mind I cussed him out just a bit. I couldn’t say the words I was thinking, at least not in front of my mother. I didn’t like the taste of
As I stood next to the goat pen, I noticed my dad in his grey pickup sped into our driveway. His vehicle being followed by several others with flashing lights, although the last vehicle scared me the most. It was an ambulance. I remember being so scared I couldn't move at all, I was speechless. When I
The Soviet Union lacked military strength but their bonds with other countries increased, causing them to have an advantage.
Jackson chuckled charmingly and shook his head a stupid grin on his face at his wife's playful expression. She was an odd case, difficult to figure out. She was a spectacular woman, with 10 parts cute, 10 parts gorgeous, 10 parts sexy and 70 parts intelligent. She was unique for a woman of the 1920's she was very much her own woman. Jackson could see just from his people watching earlier that all of the other female guest were certainly not their own woman. He'd pieced together that there was two other, likely married, couples on the boat with them. The women were a perfect example of a high class woman in the society of the 1920's, nothing like Natalie, or at least that's how Jackson saw it. One woman was very gossipy, almost chatting her
I woke up about 9 o'clock. As usual I turned on the TV. I saw a terrible image of one tower and a lot of smoke was coming out of it. Still not realizing what was happening, I went to another room to pack my stuff in order to go to college. At this time I was thinking that it was just a regular fire and nothing serious. When I got on the bus I saw unusual commotion among people. I could feel panic and fear among people. I wanted to use my cell phone to call my friend to find out if he’s ok, but it did not work.
Not many people can say they’ve had a bird fly into their car while driving, but I can. It was about 2 years ago and my mom had just picked me up from volleyball practice. We both decided to roll down our windows as it was a beautiful spring day outside. Five minutes into the drive, the unthinkable happened. I looked to my left and saw a bird flying straight at me. Before I could even say anything the bird was inside the car and had hit me on the side. I screamed at the top of my lungs and we definitely would have won America’s Home funniest videos if it had been recorded. I was in full panic mode and my eyes were tightly shut closed. Now realizing what had happened my mom swerved into the nearest parking lot and we both ran out of the car.
The barbecue kicked off without a hitch. I didn’t know my brother had brought fireworks until I saw him unloading them from the back of his car. He pulled out crates of bottle rockets, roman candles, and firecrackers. These were things that would excite me before my military service. My brother, dad, and sister started to set up the fireworks across the backyard. My brother lit several sparklers and handed them out to the spectators. I watched as my brother lit the first bottle rocket. I started to remember my first experience during the Fourth of July party and became ill with fear. I started to sweat again and my chest became tight. The wick on the bottle rocket lit the gunpowder; it quickly flew into the sky with a loud siren. Toward the end of the flight a loud “BANG” was heard and colorful flaming sparkles soon filled the sky. I immediately fell to my knees while gripping my chest. My chest felt like a car had driven on top of it, I was terrified. I soon realized that these symptoms were just like the Fourth of July party. My family asked what was wrong but I couldn’t speak. I finally calmed down after I ran for safety in my dad’s house and closed the door. I attempted to explain the situation once again to my family. Like my friends, they didn’t
I was once driving a yellow Cadillac when I notice a hollowing collie. When I first noticed it I thought he was hurt so I pulled over. When I got out the car I instantly started smelling a smoke smell. As I approached the dog he ran off into the woods. I started chasing after him when I realized the forest was on fire. I had no idea what to do, so I then ran back to my Cadillac and dialed 911. I told them where I was and that we needed help immediately. They then arrived 10 minutes later.
The time went by slowly as my family and I waited for the fire to get put out. Eventually, the questions came at me in a wave "are you okay?" "What happened?" How do you answer if you are okay when you watched everything you owned disappear at once? How do you answer what happened when you were the one who turned on the stove? I felt defeated. I should never have turned on the stove. I should never have filled that stupid black kettle with water. It was my fault that people lost what they worked for. I had lost something that I cherished and caused other people the same pain I was feeling. I was
My fingers were struggling to dial 9-1-1, all I could think about was the intense crying of my mom going on in the background. What was going to happen? After the few ringing tones, an operator answered. I quickly explained that I needed an ambulance immediately. The operator said paramedics would be there in a matter of minutes. Those minutes were the longest minutes of my life. After the phone call my mom asked me to help her get my grandmother out of bed. When I went into my grandma’s room I grabbed one of her arms while my mom grabbed the other, and we pulled with all of our strengths. I was shouting my grandma's name to get a reaction out of her, she just muttered a word and looked up with her soulless eyes. As we struggled to keep her standing the paramedics came through the door. They loaded her up on a stretcher and took her to the Emergency Room. That night I couldn’t sleep thinking of what was happening in the hospital.
With music blasting, voices singing and talking, it was another typical ride to school with my sister. Because of our belated departure, I went fast, too fast. We started down the first road to our destination. This road is about three miles long and filled with little hills. As we broke the top of one of the small, blind hills in the middle of the right lane was a dead deer. Without any thought, purely by instinct I pulled the wheel of the car to the left and back over to the right. No big deal but I was going fast. The car swerved back to the left, to the right, to the left. Each time I could feel the car scratching the earth with its side. My body jolted with the sporadic movements of the car. The car swerved to the right for the last time. With my eyes sealed tight, I could feel my body float off the seat of the car.
It was Spring of my freshman year of high school, and I was standing in front of my school, laughing and talking with one of my best friends waiting for my Mother to pick me up. I could not wait to see her and tell her how amazing my day had been. The second I saw her white Honda Pilot pull into a parking spot I raced over to see her, but my Mom was not there. Instead it was my Dad in the driver’s seat. I was confused since usually I would have gotten a text or phone call that someone else was picking me up. He obviously saw the confusion on my face and said, “Your mom is at home with your brother Zach.” I did not
The fire came closer, lashing out at me as though it were a fiery whip. The indescribable pain was blinding, so much so that I couldn't think straight. I screamed and thrashed about helplessly as the raging flames engulfed me further. I wished that I could have ended it now but I knew that all I could do was to wait for the excruciating pain to kill me, though that seemed like an eternity away.
Fire at any level can be devastating, yet the effects that wildfires have on every worldwide country really has left its mark on the land. As written by world renowned wild fire spokesperson Smokey the Bear, “Every year, wildfires sweeps through parts of the United States setting wilderness and homes ablaze. On average these raging infernos destroy about four to five million acres of land a year. But in 2012, wildfire burned more than 9.3 million acres, an area about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined” (U.S. Wildfires). Destroying homes, crops, towns and of course forests. Yet the effects of these fires can be seen from a negative perspective as well as some positive. Plus there are natural causes as well as manmade that makes these destructive fires erupt and become almost unstoppable in seconds.
Looking back to when I was about the age of seven, my older brother who was nine at the time, and my younger sister who was only six had caught the backyard on fire. I remember it was a sunny afternoon and my father had just gotten home from working an overnight shift at his new job at Marshall Durbin. My mother had just left to go to work soon after, and my father had went to go lay down for a few hours sleep. We lived, practically in the middle of nowhere, in Carbon Hill with my grandparents. It was a single wide trailer that was tan in color and had a beautiful flat half acre backyard. The only people that we considered neighbors lived miles away from the house. We did not mind living far from people, because we liked the peace and quiet.
My mom and I arrived at my great aunt’s house in Ely, Nevada at around dinnertime. We both decided it was time to get some sleep due to our long drive. My mom had asked me to wake her up if my dad did not call or arrive by midnight. She was obviously very tired from driving and I had slept most of the way anyways. I could tell my mom was very worried about my dad because he was traveling on his Harley Davidson, and the roads were dangerous. My innocent ten-year-old mind did not think anything bad could happen,