Update

Pictures of the fire area from our roof Monday morning. You can see the helicopters were going again in these pictures. Later in the day they also had a plane or two flying in and dropping stuff on hot spots. We are on the east side of the fire. So, Sunday night was pretty long. I don't remember the timetable exactly, but here's what happened. As we saw the fire starting to come over the crest of the mountain we realized we wouldn't get a reverse 911 call if we were required to evacuate. So I got on facebook and it was so helpful! Our city was posting updates every 15 minutes or so, as well as plenty of neighbors. The mandatory evacuation line was about 2 streets away from us - we were the only streets south of the 14200 south line that were not evacuated.

We started gathering stuff together just in case - pictures, albums, discs, computer back-up, etc. Then we started on more practical stuff like clothes, bathroom and baby stuff. Around 2 a.m. I was going to head to bed. But after checking updates I saw that our streets had been added to the mandatory evacuation list. There was some confusion about whether they were really evacuating our streets or not. Looking out the window I could see the fire had moved down the mountain quite a bit from when I last looked. I woke up Kurt and he jumped in the car to drive up and see what was going on. He came back and said they still had police on the streets close to us, but they weren't moving. After hanging out and watching everything for another hour or so, our streets were taken off the mandatory evacuation map. This is also when the winds changed direction and the fire turned back on itself. Bulldozers also arrived on our side of the fire to help out.

You can find a great overhead shot of the fire area from the Salt Lake Tribune here. On the left side in the (tiny) reservoir that is 8 or 9 blocks from our house. Here is a youtube video from the Salt Lake Tribune as well.

Around 58 seconds it shows our streets at the very left/east side. The road that curves upwards in a hook shape and ends in a dead end is the evacuation line. All the houses between that road and the fire area are part of our church ward boundaries and are still evacuated. Depending on weather and fire conditions today they hope they will get back to their homes this afternoon.

The emergency management people have said the fire is only 20% contained and high winds expected today could cause it to flare up again. Our side doesn't seem to be smoking anymore, but the sky is hazy - its still dark outside right now (6:30am) so its hard to tell if its smoky or cloudy. I can also still hear helicopters coming and going.

Hopefully our part in this is over and its our only big excitement for a while. :)