Forest Fires- Out of Control

It's been a pretty stressful time around these parts for a lot of people since yesterday afternoon. I was on my way into work yesterday and we noticed the huge clouds of smoke that went way up to the clouds from a forest fire that is still currently out of control in our neighbouring town of Lake Echo/Porter's Lake. They've evacuated over 3000 families and a several people have lost their homes.

This was the view from the top of elementary school grounds in our backyard last night.
Over looking the school. You can see the smoke is mixing right into the clouds it's so high.

This one was taken today, we took a drive over to Rainbow Haven Beach and this is one of the fires overlooking the beach. The water bombers were in action the whole time we were at the beach today.

It's very sad, I've worked the past couple of nights and we've had people coming in who have either lost their home or are in limbo, waiting to hear if their home is gone. The winds have been really strong here the past few days and it's not making the job an easier for the firefighters. They've brought in extra water bombers from Chatham, New Brunswick and Gander, Newfoundland to help the efforts, but the winds really need to settle. I guess the winds changed direction, as I just heard that the fire has reached the Preston area now, which is only about 5 kms from my house. We also have several gas stations in the middle, so I pray to God that the it doesn't meet those, or we're gonna be in one hell of a mess.

I realize that human lives are of more importance than material things, but my heart goes out to all those people that were at work and weren't able to get home to get anything before the evacuation order was put into effect, and now all the roads are closed down as the fire actually crossed one of the highways. Scary stuff. Please keep us in your thoughts that they can control the fires in the very near future without much more damage to homes or worse.

Gotta get some rest, it's been a long couple of days. I'll update more soon.

Thanks for stoppin' by! :)