Fire of October 17, 2012

 We haven't gotten to see all of the damage - but we did go for a ride and saw a little bit of how big the fire was.  Crookston was surrounded by fire at one point - except on the south.  And then it went on to the east about 2 miles along Hwy. 20.  Starting in the Spring Creek area.........to east of Crookston.....someone said "18 miles".  Some cattle were lost or singed, lots of bales, one home (or parts of it)......  But it was amazing that there really wasn't more loss.  Below I have a picture of the leaves (corn) that got caught in our trees along the driveway.  Will give you an idea of the wind that we had the day of the fire.

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As we drove along the fire line - it was almost hard to see what had burned.  The grass is so brown and dead.......and the wind put the sand to blowing - so now the burnt areas are brown with sand.  The road ditches have sand drifts.....like snow drifts.

We are so thankful for all the firefighters and ranchers that put everything else aside and worked so hard to save property and lives.  Gary and Don (and of course, many others) worked on just a 1/4 mile of the fire - but they were there for about 5 hours before they dared to leave.  They would think they had some of it out - -only to turn around and see it roaring at them again.  It was said that the cause were electric lines hitting each other in the wind and creating sparks. 

Please continue to pray for rain.  We could use a whole week of nice steady slow rain - or probably longer.  We don't ask for much.

Gary and Barb