Excitement in the Campground!

We had some excitement in the campground yesterday afternoon!

 

We were in the middle of preparing dinner...Earl was barbequing, I had just finished making salads, and had a pot of quinoa on the stove cooking, when a Forest Service Ranger came through with sirens on.  He went through the campground and then left again, apparently, going to the campground next door (which is closed for renovations and has huge signs across the barrier that they aren't to be crossed for any reason).

 

I don't know all the details, but apparently some idiots in a boat had pulled up on shore at this closed campground and started a fire.  In a fire ring?  Apparently not, considering the consequences.  At any rate, the fire got away from them and started a forest fire.

 

Everyone in the campground was told to pack up and leave.  This was a major bummer, not only because we were right in the middle of dinner preparations, but after dumping our tanks and filling up with fresh water earlier in the day, we'd come back to our site and dropped the camper off the truck.  So now, in addition to doing all the stuff inside and outside that we have to do to prepare to get on the road, we had to jack up the camper and put it back on the truck (I wouldn't leave the camper sitting there to be burned up unless the fire was licking at our doorstep).

 

So what to do?  I put the pot of quinoa in the sink sitting on a towel and gave Earl some aluminum foil to wrap up the pork chops which were on the barbeque.  We would have to leave the barbeque there since we're using a charcoal one and the coals would have been too hot to dump, even in the fire ring without dousing them with water.  I put the TV antenna down and started stowing everything inside. 

 

Just as we were about to start jacking up the camper, the camp host came by to say we didn't have to leave after all, but to be prepared to leave at any time.

 

The upshot of all this excitement was that the fire was brought under control by the use of helicopters and crop dusters dousing the fire with water (or fire retardant, we don't know which).  There were helicopters and planes flying over the area for hours afterward.

 

Hopefully, they threw the jerks who started the fire in jail!  At the very least, I hope they make them pay the entire cost of what it cost the Forest Service (and whatever other agencies may have been involved in putting the fire out) to control the fire.