The sheriff’s call came at 3:30
a.m.: Leave immediately. Luckily, my wife, SueEllen, and I were
already up, grabbing passports, photos, dog food, wall hangings from
Thailand and Zanzibar. A neighbor had called earlier, warning us that
flames were coming fast out of the western foothills, driven by searing
winds that transformed our backyard windmill blades into a silver blur.
I’d
gone to bed knowing that a wildfire was crackling in the high country
beyond our beautiful valley near Fort Collins, Colo., and threatened the
mountain school where kids sometimes rode horses to class. Still, that
school was seven miles away from us, as the sparks fly.
But
those sparks were flying like mad, making the fire bound forward a
quarter-mile at a time. As we drove off, the foothills seemed to be full
of erupting volcanoes –– volcanoes on the move.
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