This afternoon a tree fell in the forest, and we heard it too. This took down some power lines and set the woods ablaze.

Pictures later.

Sign up for your "I survived the Dragon Fire 2008" T shirt.

 

more fires? i noticed a lot of the hillsides were already scorched.
+1 for a shirt!

 

Oh no......checking the news as I type this to see if there are any updates.....Yikes.....

Donna

 

Were staying about 4 cabins up from where the tree fell and it was a sight to see. There were fireballs shooting down the power line until they turned the power off and a couple of friends who have a cabin right behind where the fire started had a light fixture actually blow off the wall and is now hanging by the wires. Seems Fontana needs to check their fuses and do some tree trimming. Here are some pics I snapped. If you look close you can see some of the Fontana employees and cabin renters running up the side of the Mountain with buckets and even a couple of trash cans of water and a few with fire extinguishers. Took about 4 hours to get completely out with the help of the forestry dept and grahmn county fire dept. I have about 30 more pics but they are on another camera and I'll post them tomorrow.

 

inioway, welshmenwillnotyield, his wife, Kika, and I evacuated Cabin 524, with the help of silverwolf08, o4amini and Mr. o4amini. Wolfie managed to save The Pants from the flames!

ini and I left Fontana since we were planning to fly out of Knoxville tomorrow, anyway. We're at lodging near the airport. Never a dull moment at the Dragon!

 

Holy Crap! Sure is an eventful MOTD!

 

Yup.. Katie's and Mark F's cabins were right in the fire line so to speak. Fortunately Fontana was able to get the fire eventually. Great Bear did manage to video the arcing and sparking on his camera! Pretty scary looking when you see it.

 

MINIclo, my wife, inioway and I were 2 cabins away from where the tree fell that started the whole thing. Our cabin, #524 [the one with the colorful Tibetan Prayer Flags on the porch railing], was completely without power Thursday evening, so my wife and I used our MOTD Swag flashlight to light our way thru each room and clean out everything that the first group of people left behind during the day. I think Clover did the "right thing" by putting those prayer flags there, as there were no injuries or losses of life on Welch Rd., just some inconveniences. Those flags, even though put there for decoration, REALLY worked, and I was able to take pics right off our rear deck, of the fires on the hillside about 10-15 ft. away! We were VERY fortunate to have those prayerful flags, I think, especially in lieu of all the other nasty weather, destruction, injuries and death hitting western TN, ARK and MIZZOU Thursday. My wife and I spent the night at the Lodge in Fontana and checked out after breakfast early Friday morning, returning home around 6 last night, in driving rain, wind and bumper-to-bumper traffic from Florence, KY, on northwards.

 

Wow, there's a lot of NOT-MINI's in that picture...

 

Most people were still out on drives or attending the pasta dinner at 5 PM.

 

If you ARE serious, I'd sure like one of those in an XXL!

WMWNY

 

Me too in XL and one for Tracy in medium. Give more info on where to get them.

 

Count me in on a shirt too... XXL and a MED
I'll pre-smoke them for next years MOTD.

 

yeah just ask MiniNurse how I flipped a golf cart with her on the back.... she was one of several on board.....

Golf carts don't work power slides with people on the back in case anyone was thinking of trying it.

chris

 

I heard

 

and we had no power after the fire for the entire day :(

 

I'm in on a Shirt. I was driving up as the powerlines were arcing and shooting flames but by the time I pulled off and got the camera out the power was off.

 

546 didn't get power until around lunch time on Friday.

 

LOL well the HIKERS shamed most of the MINI folks. They were helping those few of us that were pouring water on, shoveling dirt on, and stomping out the fire as it crept close as hell to a few of the cabins before help arrived. So many were sitting around doing nothing at all. We are in the woods with a fire. The situation could have gotten MUCH worse if what little could be done before the professionals got there was not done. It's the old Navy addage. When you are on a boat and there is a fire everyone is a fireman.

I am happy it all worked out in the end.

 

I'm very glad there were no injuries and the fire did not spread to the cabins. Here is my favorite picture from the experience.
Jason

 

Where is the electricity video(s)?

I so wanted to just stare at it but I was making sure folks were getting their junk from their cabins and not going too close till the power was cut.

 

Great Bear has one.. i don't know if he's posted it yet.

 

Cabin 538 (last in the row at the top) didn't get power til the following morning, but the power surge fried the TV, my new CD player, the clock radio in my room and the icemaker in the freezer.
Thanks to lotsie et all who put out the flare up 30 feet from my cabin later that night, so I could sleep..You guys are my heroes!
Greatbear, you need to post that video you got..

 

The fire was rather unfortunate! We got power back at 3am - We were about to pack up, but then it came back on. Thank goodness we had some ice to put the babies milk in coolers, but it was tricky changing diapers with no light

I would also like a t-shirt

 

I can't agree more. I used to work for the Parks Service in Banff and when I ran up and saw a young guy standing around taking pictures, I flipped out and yelled at him to drop his effing camera and help out. Sorry, dude, but stopping a fire when it first starts is a lot easier then when it's several acres in size. Thanks for jumping in and helping out. My compliments to all of those others who helped coz it made a huge difference.