One day before my story about wildfires is published in the Ogemaw County Voice, Andy sits working at his desk. The phone rings. It’s the conference call from Habitat International that he’s been expecting. As he eases back for what he knows will be an extended conversation, a flicker outside the window catches his eye.
“I’m going to have to drop off here for a minute,” he says dryly to the group, as dry as the brush in our rain-deprived woods. “My backyard is filled with smoke and fire.”
Drew replies, “That’s more creative than ‘my dog ate my homework.'”
Click.
A 9-1-1 call later and Andy gets back into the call while the Lupton Fire Department puts out a fire at the edge of our woods.
Is this irony?
The edge of our woods.
The cause of the fire was ashes from our outdoor wood boiler that I dumped out earlier that morning. Turns out they were still smoldering, even after cooling in a covered trash can overnight.
The fireman said, “I put mine in a cement bunker for a week before dumping them.”
Or stupidity?
Scorched.
I prefer calling it experience.
In other words: surviving stupidity.
Survivor.
bradypatch 
Today we’re smelling smoke from that Duck Lake fire all the way here in the western U.P. Fires can be so scary…
Yikes! Yes, fires are very scary. When I was shooting the brush fire down our road the week before ours, the wind shifted and the flames roared in a wave my way–I sure got out of there quick! We were very lucky Andy was home–hate to think what we would have lost had he not been. Thoughts go out to those in the way in the UP…