Fire is a scary thing

I've always been fascinated by fire. When I was younger, I'd sneak a lighter into my room just so I could set paper on fire. As I got older, my fascination became less like pyromania. I satisfied my fascination by lighting candles or sitting by the fireplace instead of destroying old papers and plastic hangers. I was never afraid of burning myself or setting something ablaze, at least not until this past weekend.

I spent the majority of my weekend in Orlando hanging out with friends who live over there. Saturday afternoon, I got a call from my mom telling me to be careful because there were brush fires all over the Titusville area. I kind of blew off her warning and assumed the firefighters would have the fire controlled in no time. Boy was I wrong. Late Saturday night, I was driving home with Chris when I thought I saw something orange shooting up over the trees on Highway 50. He must have seen it too because he looked over at me with this look of fear, confusion, and curiosity. As we got closer to town, we saw the wetlands burning uncontrollably, trees covered in black soot, and firefighters trying to get into the woods to put the fires out. Witnessing this terrifying scene definitely changed my fascination of fire into complete fear.

The original blaze has been put out (after burning 6000+ acres), but another has popped up a town over. This new fire has already burned 16,000+ acres and is barely 25% contained. I'm worried about my friends who live over that way as well as the firefighters trying to contain the flames. One brave firefighter, Matt Wescott, has already been sent to the hospital with burns to his face. If you're the praying type, pray for rain. Pray for the safety of the firefighters and for protection and comfort over those affected. I don't even live in harms way and I was too scared to go to sleep until nearly 2 last night. Here's a picture from Florida Today of the flames I saw.