Fire, fire, fire! This is not a drill!

I think Doug learned it in the Navy, but this is what he announces when there is a wildfire.
"FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!  THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"
All hands on deck would be a good interpretation.  We have had three unexpected fires already this dry season on campus and one nearby where we were called to help.
The winds are STRONG now.  The grass is too tall and too dry.  This all makes for a challenging fire season!
Thankfully I don't believe anything important has been burned.
Even the fire that went through the old cow pasture didn't seem to harm the wooden posts.
God is so gracious to us!
It is also honey harvesting season.  How do they calm the bees?  They use smoke.
Where there is smoke.... (you know the rest)... there is fire.
So some of the fires are because the remains after smoking the beehive have not been put out well enough.  The following day when it is warm, dry and WINDY, the fires have started up.  It is almost ALWAYS in the afternoon that we have fires, but not always.  Our second fire was in the morning.

GOD INTERVENED AGAIN.
Our last fire was our largest one so far.  It happened on a Sunday and most of our staff and nearly all of our students were GONE!
The phone rang and it was Jason.  He was a LONG way off, on his way back from town with a truck full of window glass for the press building.  He asked where the smoke was.  He said he could see BIG SMOKE and it looked like it was at Kibidula or just north of us from where he was.  I asked where he was.  HE WAS A LONG WAY OFF.  I ran out to the road, and could see NOTHING.  NOTHING.......
Doug and Joshua jumped on the motorcycle and off they went to see if they could see smoke.  They went one direction, and not too far away, Joshua saw two small puffs of smoke the other direction.  They turned around and zipped off, coming back by here.  I immediately changed clothes into some I didn't mind messing up, and called the Cootz (only the ladies home at that time!)
Then I get the message, YES it is HERE and it is BIG!  I start calling people and running to get the truck ready.  Jason said he already got the message and called the driver of the water truck and "our" fire chief.  After driving to get a few more helpers (I will try to keep this a short and not include ALL the details), off we went to join those that had already arrived.
As I was driving out, I started to think it must already be out.  I couldn't even see the smoke from the house or much of the road.  As we finally got closer, we could see LOTS OF SMOKE!  The wind was so strong that day that the smoke was being pushed off down low for a distance and wasn't very noticeable from campus roads!
The water truck and crew were busy and the fire was out within an hour.

In talking to Jason after it was out, he said by the time he got close to campus, it looked like the smoke was FAR away.
WHAT?  If Jason had waited until he got close, he would have dismissed it as not here. 
Oh, how thankful we are that God showed him BIG SMOKE from far away, or that fire would have been HUGE by the time we would have found out about it!  God intervened again.  God impressed him that it was at Kibidula or very close to it.  I am so thankful that the few people that were able to come to the fire were around.  We were not a lot of poeple.

All the glory goes to God.