The fires raging in Texas over this summer became personal in June. There was a raging forest fire by my house in Spring, Texas which is a suburb of Houston. I remember early in the day smelling smoke and trying to figure where it was coming from. Once I was able to spot the fire I knew it wasn’t going to be good. I started going in and out of the house trying to figure out if it was still going on. I didn’t know if I needed to leave. The day got windy where ash kept blowing past me.

That fire endangered around 200 homes in my neighborhood. The fire was estimated to be around 50 acres in size. It started in the area behind Gloria Marshall Elementary School. Officials evacuated residents from my neighborhood around 3:20 p.m on Friday June 17th, 2011. First United Methodist Church in Humble was used as a shelter for those displaced by the fire. We decided to just hang in the cars.

The Texas Forestry Service reported that the fire started around 10 a.m. It began as a 3-acre fire but grew over the course of the day. Firefighters were having trouble containing the blaze due to lack of humidity, heat and dry vegetation in the area. They battled the fire with extra help from helicopters and a plane. I heard they dropped 200 gallons of water at a time! Then three tractors plowed through the area to help as well to keep it from starting back up again.

The evacuation notice was lifted later that same evening. We went home to find everything was fine. We were lucky that they were able to stop it before we lost anything. We had another fire on September 5th which was farther away but close to home. We did not have to evacuate that time. The Waller fire burned more than 10,500 acres and destroyed more than 76 structures which included 60 homes. While I am very fortunate that I still have my home I feel really bad for those that lost everything.

  In my pictures you can see the helicopters flying over and the plane.