The Furious Herriman Fire

So, I was on my way to Brandts families house for Sunday dinner when I saw a pretty decent size plume of smoke hovering over the southwest end of the valley. A huge fire broke out at the army base from a bullet that created sparks and ultimately ended up in a huge wild fire that evacuated 1,600 homes and about 5,000 people. The border for the evacuation was close to Brandts home. Their neighbor knocked on the door asking us to help him help his friend get their cars and as much stuff as they could grab out of their Herriman home up in The Cove at Herriman Springs where all those big nice expensive homes are up the mountain. We got over there too late. They weren't letting anyone in and they were evacuating everyone. We couldn't help this guy out. He grabbed his dog and jeep and left. We're not sure if his house was one that burned yet, but his home was apparently one of the highest on the hill, so it's quite possible. Brandt and I wanted to go up by our hiking spot to see if we could get a better view. The area hadn't been evacuated yet, but probably should have been. The fire was quite close. The wind was so strong. We got some good pictures and video of it. Three different times, we saw embers fly from the fire about 200 or so feet and start more fires down the mountain. It was pretty intense. We left just as the police were coming around to evacuate people. We saw people in their homes running around getting things, with garage doors open to vehicles with open trunks and people ready to go. It was a surreal sight. The flames were incredible!

So we took this picture and realized it was FAR TOO INAPPROPRIATE for the circumstances, I mean it's not like it's a sunset or anything.... so we decided to retake the picture and this is what we came up with... probably still inappropriate.