We didn't start the fire. But a machine gun sure did.

Wow, what a night we had last night...for a professional journalistic look at the events of yesterday, go here or here. For my personal, time-lined experience, read on.

2:10 p.m. Leave church. Smell something that smells sort of like a campfire, but don't really think much of it. We live in kind of a rural town, so lots of people have their own fire pits and such.

2:30 p.m. I head over to a Young Women's meeting and notice a plume of smoke coming from the mountains south of our house. Figure it's a distant wildfire or controlled burn and nothing to be worried about.

3:30 p.m. Head home from meeting. Plume of smoke is getting bigger and looks closer, plus the air is getting a lot smokier. Get a little concerned.

5 p.m. John and I leave for Sunday dinner at my parent's house. I jokingly grab our CD of wedding pictures and bring it to the car, you know, in case we have to evacuate. Are greeted by this sight:

Am suddenly really grateful I decided to grab the pictures. John and I debate back and forth whether we should turn back and grab more of our irreplaceables/valuables in case the fire comes over the ridge and somehow makes its way to our house. Decide to go to my parent's and see what the news is saying. Discuss on the way what items we will take with us should we return home and find out that we do, in fact, need to evacuate. Mine are mostly sentimental ... pictures, scrapbooks, journals. High on John's priority list: his keyboard, guitars and computer. Ha. Therein lies the difference between women and men. (But in John's defense, his computer has most of our digital pictures and a lot of his logos and artwork on it. And he makes extra money with his musical instruments. So I suppose he gets points for practicality.) We see lots of police cars and fire trucks racing past us heading south. Even see a Blackhawk helicopter take off and head in that direction. Start to wonder if this thing is more serious than we thought.

5:42 p.m. Arrive at my parent's house. Greeted by the news that half of our ward has been evacuated and that my friend's brother's house a few miles away from ours is in danger. Find out that we are not in the evacuation zone, so decide to stay and eat dinner. Somehow put my fears aside and relax a little bit.

7:40 p.m. My parents return home from taking a spin in my brother's new car. My dad says we should go to our house; the fire looks like it's getting bigger.

7:45 p.m. Leave for our house. John and I are in separate cars (we left his car at my parent's house over the weekend) and my parents and brother are in a third car. I am in the lead and call John when I spot the massive flames on the mountains to the south. Start to panic a little bit. It takes me about an hour and a half to finally get to my house, a drive that normally takes less than a half hour. Yell at all of the gawkers on the side of the road who have their video cameras and tripods out and are congesting traffic. Get frustrated by people shooting up the middle lane and trying to butt in front of me and the other cars in front of me. Freak out a little when I see news cameras everywhere, flashing red and blue lights all over the place and a raging fire right in front of me. Get stuck in gridlocked traffic less than a block away from where we turn to get to our street, finally decide to bail and go the other way, only to be rerouted by policemen. Also, my phone dies, so I have no way to get a hold of anyone and am not sure where everyone is. Break down in hysterical tears when I finally get home. John hugs me for a good five minutes, despite my ugly hysterical crying face. Our house is fine, but we can see the fire from our front and back yards. We take a walk up the street and can see a house on fire about a half-mile away from us. Get lots of smoke and ash in our eyes. Cannot comprehend what it would be like to lose your house.

The view from our backyard

Gather up some of our belongings to take with us just in case...take a little more than we would have if it would have been a mandatory, rushed evacuation (hi, clock from Gardner Village and Willow Tree statues). Watch the news, check Twitter and Facebook to see if our neighborhood is going to be evacuated.

11:20 p.m. Decide to play it safe (and get away from the smoke) and spend the night at my parent's house after seeing that a lot of our neighbors have been told by police to have bags ready to go just in case something happens. Look back as I'm almost to Bangerter Highway and try not to drive off the road as I see that the whole mountain appears to be on fire and is dangerously close to houses. One of the craziest things I've ever seen in person.

11:45 p.m. Spend another awesome night sleeping on the air mattress. Goes along wonderfully with our smoke-filled hair and clothes, so it's pretty much like camping. Watch the news until the coverage stops around 12:30 to see if there are any new developments. Try to sleep. John tells me in the morning he's had some pretty wacky dreams, as is to be expected.

So there you have it. To put it simply, we are safe and our house is safe, so it's all good in the hood for the most part. Our house surprisingly doesn't smell as strongly of smoke as I thought it would, but our cars still smell pretty bad. We are so grateful that there wasn't more damage done to homes and that, as far as we know, all of our friends and neighbors are safe and their homes are OK. Those firefighters sure are amazing. I looked at pictures of the fire pretty much all day and it's unbelievable that more houses didn't get touched. Thanks to everyone for all of your texts, phone calls, emails and offers of help and concern! We have sure had enough excitement over here, at least for a little while.

The view from our backyard earlier tonight