Southern Border Compromised & On Fire

Living in Arizona during the largest fire in Arizonan history has me looking at fire maps lately. Now, I know we have dry spells and specific No Burn days to help quelch would-be fires from starting and/or spreading. But my latest peek at InciWeb reveals a large majority of our southern border states are now engulfed in flames.


Courtesy of InciWeb June 20, 2011

  The survivalist in me immediately recognizes that our southern border is compromised. Arizona has it's largest fire ever along with four others within our borders.  The Wallow fire, the largest, has spread into New Mexico and is now posing threats to communities there. New Mexico also has two other fires spreading up into Colorado.  Texas is riddled with around THIRTY fires right now. Florida has it's hands full with two fires and California has one as well.

I can't help but think of Sun Tzu's Art of War and how to attack an enemy with fire. Are our border states being set ablaze intentionally? Is it to weaken moral or damage supplies and infrastructure? Is it a false flag to divert our attention from the appearant Libyan ground invasion forthcoming? I'm a little concerned about the Mexico border. Why have our National Guard troop had their border stay extended?

Then I started thinking about the possibility of electrical outages. The hot summer months are upon us. More people that ever are out of work and therefore sitting at home...in their air conditioning. I see a huge increasee in electricity usage this summer, coupled with tornadoes and fires that are threatening power plants.

This might be the month I finally buy myself a generator. Anybody else concerned about this stuff?

Wallow Fire: What's YOUR Disaster Plan?

Image courtesy of hlswatch.com

Tornadoes are devastating Oklahoma, but I don't live there anymore. Riots are breaking out in some locations, but not where I live. Hurricanes hit the coasts annually, but I don't live by the water either. Actually, we're known for not having much water at all where I live...in Arizona.

So what natural disaster do I have to worry about? I thought it would be running out of water, due to a crazed city employee  trying to get some attention by blowing up the water treatment plant. Or a massive power outage, caused by any number of things, shutting off the public water system.

I never thought Arizona's soon-to-be largest wildfire would be raging two hours E/NE of my location. The Wallow fire has already consumed almost half a MILLION acres (443,989 as of 10pm, June 12th) with an ESTIMATED 10% CONTAINMENT. While I'm not in immediate danger, it does cause me to take pause. Am I prepared for a fire?

So it strikes me: What would I do? Water outage: I've stored over 600 gallons. No electricity: I have gas lanterns, stoves, etc.  Approaching fire? Uh....crap! Run? Geez, I don't know.  Images of frantically hosing the house down with my little garden hose fill my head.  Can you fireproof a house by soaking it? I don't think so.  Have NO trees, bushes, grass within 20 yards of the house?  That's not gonna happen. I planted grass for the kids to play on. I planted bushes outside their windows for security/privacy. The neighbor's wood-framed house (on both sides of me) is so close I could probably hear them snore at night, if I tried.

So, there it is: no location is completely safe. You must have a plan. Don't count on any help from the government either.  We're approaching Day 16 and not a word from POTUS about aid. We declared a STATE emergency back on Day 8.  I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Arizona is a RED state, passed SB 1070 (anti-ILLEGAL immigration) and is the home of John McCain. Yeah, Obama's probably just...busy.

So take the time to research your location. Look back at history and see what has happened in the past. Are you in the 100 year flood zone? Do you live on the New Madrid, or any other fault line? Figure out what HAS happened and what COULD happen (realistically) and start researching plans. Survivalblog has several articles on Flu Pandemics, Earthquakes, and Floods, just to mention a few. These are real stories from survivors that have lived through the disasters. Here's a list of the Top 10 Worst U.S. Natural Disasters.

Remember the old saying: People don't plan to fail, they fail to plan.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go: check batteries in smoke alarms, practice fire drills with the kids, double check my BOBs, draw an inaccurate retreat map for my mother-in-law...oh wait, did I say that out loud?

Focus on Beneficial LIFE Skills

5 of 6 daughters were in cheer or tumbling
and we were WAY too busy running around.

This summer, our family is focusing more on basic skills like gardening, sewing, canning, dutch oven cooking, and shooting and less on activities that might not be of much use later in life...specifically...Competitive and Performance Cheer.

 While our girls DID enjoy the activity of cheer practice with all the cartwheels, front walkovers, backhand springs and the such, what wasn't enjoyed was the snottiness of the spoiled teammates, the overpriced add-ons (hair bows, makeup kits, shoes, cheer uniforms...and on and on and on), and the price tag waiting at the end of the season if you wanted to travel to another state to watch them compete in Nationals. Did they get exercise...yes. Did they learn a skill that would help them as adults...hardly. Don't even get me started on how much time and gas we spent driving back and forth to practice (two girls on one Competitive Cheer team, eldest on another Competitive Cheer team, 5 year old in Performance Cheer, 3 year old in tumbling).

It was a hard sell at first. Wifey was heavily involved in cheer and dance growing up. She was so good, she won Star Search (you know, Ed McMann Star Search.) She wanted her girls to feel the joy of accomplishment that cheer and dance brought in her youth. After some time, she realized that she had invested so much of her life into cheer because she didn't have anything else to do. Our girls are quite the opposite. They were turning down things left and right because they had an obligation to a cheer team, 2-3 nights each week with competitions on Saturdays. Don't forget the additional "Clinics" on the side. For an additional fee, they could get more one-on-one time with the coach to work on skills. Homework AND chores were suffering and the girls were staying up past midnight on school nights to get homework done.

Crisscross fire next to our chimney starter.

One of our choices this year was to ditch the cheer team and spend more time with the Job's Daughters group that my girls had joined right before cheer started. In 2010, they missed out on being in two parades, going to a circus, a mini beach vacation, a campout and several minor events. This year...they're doing it all! Cheer didn't end until the end of April so they missed the 2011 campout. But we're doing everything else that comes along. The Jobie girls are much more friendly, respectful and genuinely care about each other. There are frequent "secret sister" gift exchanges, numerous service projects and later this month will be a state-wide conference called Grand Session for an entire weekend, including a craft fair. My girls are excited to enter their crocheting and sewing projects. One daughter is trying to learn cross stitching from youtube to complete a pillow case.

And today, what a great day! I spent a few hours showing my girls how to start fires! YES! I showed them how to build the tee pee, criss-cross, and star configured wood fire. We used a butane torch lighter, weatherproof matches, regular lighter, and a flint rod for variety. Then we practiced two ways to put out the fire: cover it with earth and douse it with water. I hadn't thought much of these activities in the past. We were always so busy. I found out today that NONE of my girls could even start a Bic lighter. Gasp! We always told them to stay away from lighters and matches when they were younger. Obviously they did if they can't flick a Bic. Watching them create a spark from the flint rod was fun too. But slowly, they all got it ( the little ones watched Blue Clues with Mommy.)

Half eaten dutch oven cornbread and brownies

I also taught my 12 and 13 year old how to start a charcoal fire in a chimney starter for dutch oven cooking. We cooked homemade cornbread and enjoyed it with our chili dinner. Wifey also made her first batch of homemade brownies. Homemade means ground the flour and made the recipe from scratch. Mmmmm.

Yes sir, the girls are learning some useful skills this summer.  Best of all...we're doing it together, as a family.

Update: The girls brought home three medals (two 1st place and one 2nd place) for their craft projects at Grand Session!  Now they're even MORE excited about improving their skills!