Fire Update

This is a rough panorama I made using 6 pictures I took yesterday afternoon.  It is a 180 deg. view from our door.  As of this morning the conservative estimate was the fire had grown to at least 37,000 acres, with 100+ structures destroyed.  Many people have evacuated, including a number of my clients.  Shortly after I took these photos yesterday Owen and I took the rig and picked up 3 horses from a friend's place and brought them here.  The owner was in Colorado Springs, and the necessary verbage to convince her to let me take the horses was, "We can see flames from your driveway.  I can take your horses now or I can leave them to get burnt to a crisp.  Your call."  She agreed to let me take them.  So now we have 3 refugee horses and a cat here, along with a friend whose place is in the fire path.  So far the fire doesn't look like it will reach our place, but we do have an evacuation plan and a backup evacuation plan should the worst come our way.  There is a lot of smoke in the air and ash falling.  The community information meeting this morning at the evacuee building was very emotional, many in the crowd and all the leadership for the fire depts. were tearful.  People have lost their homes, but no one knows which houses are gone, and one person is missing.  These situations bring out the best and the worst in a community.