Fire Follow-up

Following up on yesterday's blog, the fires aren't out, yet. This afternoon, Abbie got a phone call from one of our members, Militina, who was so shaken she could barely talk. In the blink of an eye, their house was surrounded by flames. Roberto was fighting off the fire about 150 feet from the house, and he grabbed Militina and their two kids, who didn't even have time to change out of their pyjamas, and took them to a safe place further down the hill. A neighboring house was in danger of catching on fire. By the end of the afternoon, the situation was under control, but they all got a major scare.

We praise God for His watchful care.

Hot

I'm hot, you're hot, it's hot. Maybe you're not hot, but you would be if you were here. Record-breaking temperatures up close to 100º F, 38º C. OK, we're spoiled, because some of you get that every summer. In the 35+ years we've been here, we haven't...until this summer.

This week has reminded us a bit of the news we watched a couple of weeks ago about the fires around Colorado Springs, only this time we could watch them live. Here's a link with some pictures. We were driving home from church Wednesday night and watched this fire.


http://www.dnoticias.pt/actualidade/madeira/335591-palheiro-ferreiro-em-chamas


Yesterday the flames were closer to where we live, and the expressway to the airport had to be closed, as the fire swept across the entire width of the 4-lane highway. We were in town and for a while our route home was cut off. When we did get home, we saw the fire had come down the mountain valley just east of us, only stopping at the beach front area. That was about 200 meters/yards from our house, but the intervening ridge meant we were in no danger.

This satellite image from NASA shows the two major sources of smoke at each end of the island. We were under the cloud of the easternmost fire (right side of picture).

The weather cooled today, but the smoke was still heavy at the top of the mountain in the distance this afternoon.

I have not gotten back to reporting on Turkey, but I haven't forgotten about that, either. We've been very busy, especially with the consulate, but more about that later. Have to wait for the smoke to settle.