(this post is picture heavy, and some of them are rather large pictures, some of them are from my phone and aren’t great quality, but I felt I needed to post them all, as this blog is somewhat of a journal)

June 2012 has been one of the driest Junes on record for the state of Utah, and I would assume for most of the west.  Combine that with the two previous exceptionally wet years and you have the perfect recipe for wild fires.  It has been hot, and windy, the kind of hot wind that just sucks all the energy out of you.
It seems like every corner of the west has been affected by wild fires, and Utah is no exception, as of yesterday (July 4) there were 10 wild fires burning across the state.

On the afternoon of June 21st a wildfire was sparked that hit very close to home.

The morning of June 22nd, I am in the car heading towards home, which is about 5 miles away. As I passed this neighborhood mandatory evacuations were starting.

Morning of June 22nd, this picture was taken about two hours after the previous one. The fire is now a few miles farther south, about two miles from my home.

This picture was taken at the same time as the one above, a few minutes later this neighborhood was evacuated as well.

Through out the afternoon my neighborhood was put on alert, we were to be ready to evacuate at anytime.  The kids and I packed the things we felt were important, and spent the afternoon watching and waiting.  All the roads into our city had beed closed (too keep the sight seers away) and about half the city was empty.  We watched helicopters fly to the lake, pump water and dump it on the fire, there were also big planes dumping fire retardant around the perimeter, a fire break was also built around the neighborhood.

The view of the fire from our back door. There was much praying that those horrible hot winds wouldn't change direction and blow the flames towards our homes.

Towards the evening, as the sun went down, the winds did change direction so instead of moving southeast, they were going southwest. West was good, that was away from the homes and we weren't evacuated.

The view of the fire that night from our back door. It was almost directly behind us, but much farther west than it had been earlier that day.

Since the fire behind our house there have been a dozen or so wildfires in Utah. Many homes have burned. The latest started the afternoon of July 3rd, east and north of us near a city named Alpine. This is how it looked a couple hours after it started from my city. It threw up a lot more smoke and such because it is burning in big pine forests.

Sunday July 1st, our family along with many other people fasted and prayed that there would be some relief, hopefully in the form of rain and cooler temperatures.  We need some moisture so badly to help with those fires, to keep new ones from burning and to give moisture to the tinder dry conditions around the state.  So we fasted and waited.

 On Sunday there was no rain in the forecast.

As the days went on it started looking like something might happen at the end of the week, but it wasn’t a sure thing.

This morning, I woke up to rain.
Not just scattered thunder storms, but good steady drizzly rain!  Not enough to cause mud slides on the damaged hills, or flash flooding, but enough to give everything a good soaking.

Nice low clouds, full of rain, much different from the smoke that has been hanging around.

 Today I am feeling so blessed

Because I know that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers.