OMG!!! The entire mountain in front of my house is on fire!!!

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The headline above and the first of these photos were from an hour  and a half ago.  I’m not in danger and looks like probably no houses are endangered.  Hard to tell but the fact that there have been no sirens makes me think this isn’t in a residential neighborhood, although in the pictures it looks like it is.  The fire seems to have died out lower down, probably because the wind has died down.  I still see a small fire higher up on the mountain.  So strange…I feel like I’m the only person in the world who even noticed! And it was huge right after the sunset–lit up half of the sky!!!

Click on photos to enlarge.

This picture is taken from my upstairs terrace. The dome you see covers the ceiling of my bedroom.

The fire down below seems to have burned out, but it is now moving farther up the mountain, along the ridge and on the other side.  The cross  half way up the mountain was on fire earlier and the flags and electrical wire that ran up to it.  It is usually lit by light bulbs.  This was a lighting of a different sort.  It really looked like the entire town was on fire, but a friend in town didn’t even know about it and said to her it looked like the fire was in the Raquet Club, where I live.  But, not one fire siren or other siren was heard.  So strange.

This usually noisy place… deadly silent.  Not even one dog barking.  Eeerie.

Just realizing that I’ve written a story about the firest every year.  Here is last year’s: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/09/30/fire-on-the-mountain/

And the year before:

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2013/04/19/dsc07925-jpg/

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

48 thoughts on “OMG!!! The entire mountain in front of my house is on fire!!!”

  1. Christine Goodnough

    Wow! I hope you post an update tomorrow. Maybe they’re too busy fighting fire to ring the alarm bells? I assume the dogs — and every other living creature — will be heading for water or holing up somewhere.

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      When it is up on the mountain they can’t really get to it, Christine. All they can do is let it burn. Further down I guess they’d just wet down around it.

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    2. Lucky Hazelip

      I’m new to your blog and to Raquet Club, but I too saw the fire last night and thought it was much worse than it turned out to be. We’ve been here a few weeks, so I didn’t have the experience to know not to panic. This morning it looks just like a usual “controlled burn”. Thanks for your lovely photos and poetry, Judy.
      -Lucky

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      1. lifelessons Post author

        Hi Lucky. Thanks so much for the info. I was just about to go down and check it out. So glad someone else saw it. This “controlled burn” is kind of a joke in Mexico as I’ve seen them burn trees, fences, telephone poles, telephone lines and even, once, an entire cow! That one was a doozie. I’ve never seen such a huge fire so close to human habitation. Thanks for being my newest reader. We’ll meet one of these days, I’m sure.

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      2. lifelessons Post author

        Lucky, I’m waiting for furniture to be delivered so I’m a prisoner of my house, but want to see where the burn was. Can you tell me where to go to see it and take photos?

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      3. lifelessons Post author

        I tried to find the fire to photograph it. I finally went to the end of one of the streets that parallels the Carretera–but several streets up from the guard gate. I did see some burned area there, which must have been it. I couldn’t get a very extensive photo, though, and couldn’t see the burn from the town. I think the cross was not burned as the flags are still up there. Wonder what I did see it burning… It looked like a rope of flame. Ah mysteries. Judy

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  2. Betty Petersen

    Keep posting this. Larry just went to the high roof and couldn’t see anything B

    Sent from my iPad

    >

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      It was absolutely huge… and Jere didn’t even know about it until I called her. Then she could see it from her roof and to her it looked like it was in the Raquet Club. To me it looked like a huge fire across the lake in Joco as well…Right now the only thing I see burning is a very small fire up by the cross.

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      The mountain often catches fire at the end of the dry season, but not this far down and not this big. When I first saw it it was immense… I went to find my camera and by the time I got back it had died down a bit, but would flare up large when the wind came up. Luckily houses are brick, concrete and adobe here. Not much wood. But, quite a few palapas recently. That’s not so good in case of fire. Only a few this high up the mountain, though. I have wood beams, but the rest is fireproof. All tile roofs except for the palapas… But no palapas at my house.

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  4. slmret

    OMG — stay safe!!! It gets eerie when fires are burning, especially if you are downwind from the fire and the smoke is blowing over you (almost like smog). I hope the winds are not blowing strongly — and I hope they don’t just wait it out overnight!

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      1. slmret

        From comments today, I can see that the fire looked much bigger and more menacing than it really was — BUT — living in Southern California I know how quickly that can change! I’m glad it wasn’t any worse than it seems to have been!

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        1. lifelessons Post author

          I drove through the San Diego fire area years ago… Now that was a fire. This was nothing in comparison, but still scary for the hour and a half that it raged.

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          1. slmret

            I hope you don’t have a fire like the San Diego fire — we’re keeping a good watch here after the drought and just enough rain to grow the grasses high enough to burn!

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      Every year there are wildfires but I’ve never seen one this big and low down. I’ve seen the entire mountain above me aflame, but no houses up there… just cornfields, brush, small trees, some agave, and I’ve heard some mj but I’ve never ventured up that far. This was scary because it looked like it was in town… and also burning in the larger town of Jocotepec. Right now I can’t even smell the smoke. Wind must have wafted it away. Just went out to look and it seems they have all burned themselves out. Relief.

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        1. lifelessons Post author

          I didn’t hear any sirens at all…When they burn off on purpose they burn fence posts, signs, trees and even telephone poles and wires! No, Mexico is not noted for its safety code, Marilyn. We just burned off the lot below me and I was sure my pistachio tree was going to go up, not to mention the palm trees, but Pasiano was there squirting water on it the entire time… The fire below me tonight was too big for that technique to have worked. I need to drive down tomorrow to see if I can determine where it was. I’m sure if it was set on purpose it was meant to burn just a small area and was just fanned when the wind came up. It was scary for about an hour and spreading quickly, then went out as quickly as it flared up.

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          1. Marilyn Armstrong

            That would scare me. I’m not easily scared, but fire out of control is not something I want to even think about. That’s probably why firemen so impress me. They run INTO the building. You really couldn’t pay me enough to do that.

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      I think it is all out, Miriam..When you said you were no strangers to fire, I immediately thought “Australia.” Checking your blog, I see I’m right. I moved to Wollongong right after I graduated from college and well remember seeing the fire jump from eucalyptus top to eucalyptus top. Fires are a yearly even here by the end of the dry season, but that one was the closest big one I’ve seen.

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      1. Miriam

        Glad it’s all out. In 2009 we had some of the worst bushfires that wiped out entire communities, including Marysville and Kinglake, which is up the mountain from where I live. The fire was heading our way before the wind changed direction. I still remember the fear. And way back many years ago, on what became known as Ash Wednesday my husband’s parents lost their house and pets in a bushfire that ravaged the area. So glad you’re safe Judy.

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  12. Audrey Zikmund

    oooohhhhh o.k. now I see the fire,,,,,looks pretty scary to me. And no sirens or dogs barking….hhhhhmmmmm

    On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 10:18 PM, lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown wrote:

    > lifelessons posted: “I’m not in danger and looks like probably no houses > are endangered. Hard to tell but the fact that there have been no sirens > makes me think this isn’t in a residential neighborhood. Click on photos to > enlarge. The fire down below seems to have ” >

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  15. dorannrule

    I have caught the air of strangeness in your photos and description of the night and that eerie fire with no sirens and no dogs barking! I hope all is well there now and life is more normal.

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    1. lifelessons Post author

      Everything back to normal. No scent of fire, even, and I had trouble finding the burn area to photograph. I did take a few though and will publish them to allay fears.. All fires out.

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        1. lifelessons Post author

          Nope. It did last week, when some really big unseen fire seemed to be smogging up the entire environment, but the minute this one went out, the smoke smell went away. Even at the time it was burning, the smoke seemed to be going straight up most of the time. For the half hour or so that the wind fanned the flames so they were huge, I could smell it. Strange.

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  17. Pingback: Fire on the Mountain!!! | lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

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