We recently dealt with a situation that I never really thought could happen to us. We’ve been through numerous tornado warnings (several were very close calls), but we have NEVER had to deal with the threat of a fire! Yes, we live in an area with a lot of wooded areas and ridges, but we had never really thought about the possibility that it could/would threaten our home. So, when the ridge across from us caught fire, it suddenly became a very real threat.

I won’t go into the fact that the fire traveled about 2 miles over a 3-day period, or the fact that our local county took THREE days to call in the local forestry division to help them deal with the fire. We were so blessed that, even though the fire was in a very heavily wooded area, it mainly just burned the low brush and fallen trees. But, the biggest blessings of all was that none of our dear neighbors were hurt, none of the fireman or forestry men/women were hurt, and no one lost their homes!

So, why am I telling you about this? Not very exciting, right? Well, I didn’t say that it never came close to any homes, because it actually came within just a few hundred feet of THREE homes. We were also supposed to have a very high chance of thunderstorms with strong winds, but God was gracious and allowed the storms and winds to hold off, which allowed the fires to stay low. Otherwise, there was a very real chance that the fire could have gotten worse and jumped the road to our side.

When the fire was quickly starting to get worse (for a short time before it was brought under control), we had to take a serious look at the situation and decide what we needed to grab to take with us in an emergency.

Yes, I know we should have gone over this beforehand, and we have, to an extent, but it had been quite a while. So, here is a few of the things that we learned:

*we do have a fireproof box for important papers, but I definitely need to go through it and update some items

*need to work on being able to grab meds, first-aid supplies, clothing essentials, etc., within a moment’s notice. (Some are easily accessible and some are not)

* While my food pantry will supply our needs IN our home, what would we do if we have to LEAVE our home at a moment’s notice? (We are working on this one. Any ideas would be appreciated!)

*If we have time to save some items from our home, what would they be? (This is a tough one since we have many items that may not have a lot of monetary value, but the memories attached to them are priceless!)

My sweet husband and I took the time to discuss these things and, while we still have several kinks to work out of our plan, I know that, should this threat ever happen again, we will be as prepared as humanly possible. Ultimately, it will be in God’s hands. With our being in the heart of tornado season here in East Tennessee, we need to make sure that we are prepared as we can be.