Let’s see. The neighborhood three blocks to the west of our house was put under mandatory evacuation a little after 2PM. I think that was premature; we’ve just been out looking, and the southern face of Mt. Lukens to the west of here looks just fine. That neighborhood is in Glendale, and we are not, or I expect we’d have been told to evacuate as well.

However, there is now fire on the south face of Mt. Lukens directly to the north of our house. It’s quite a ways up the hill, and there are many, many blocks of houses in between; but it’s up there. It hasn’t come up over the top of the ridge as I’d feared it was going to this afternoon; it’s been creeping very slowly along the mountain face from the east all afternoon.

At this point we are packed and ready to go if need be. I don’t really think that we’ll need to go; but we’re ready if need be. Here are my expectations:

• Most likely: we sleep here tonight, we sit around all day tomorrow watching the fire (and maybe the day after that) and we never evacuate.
• Possible but I don’t expect it: we are told to evacuate and we do; and after the fire has passed we return to our home.
• Least likely: we evacuate and our house burns to the ground. I say least likely, because if this happens hundreds or thousands of houses would probably burn as well, and the fire-fighters are working really hard to prevent that.

In none of these three cases do any of us die; in all of them, we get away with the things that are most precious. God will be with us.

Whatever happens, we’re ready.