I told my son Benjamin to dump the trash. When he came back from the dumpster he told my husband Danny someone was burning trash in a barrel. This was something important to know.

Right now we are in a drought in Oklahoma, USA. It’s the middle of January and we haven’t had a good amount of rain since October. The temperature has been unusually warm this year. Everyone was wearing light jackets or a sweater at church today. The temperatures has had consistent highs in the 60s and 70s and lows around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. We usually have lows in the 20s in January. There is very dry dead grass everywhere. And the outside situation gets critical when the winds get strong. The entire state has a burn ban posted. A guy at work named Walter on my assembly line is a volunteer fireman for a small town. When I saw him the other day I asked him if he’d been fighting any fires. He looked at me with tired eyes and said he’s been fighting them after work and on the weekends. Our fire fighters have been fighting many large fires for several weeks now. There have even been fire fighter come in from other states to help our fire fighters. If a driver is seen throwing out a cigarette butt they can be fined and have to pay 200 or more dollars. There is even a ban for outdoor grill cooking. Only gas grills are allowed. Our Leutinent Governor Mary Fallin asked for a day of prayer today for the drought. So we did just that at church.
Since we live in a trailer court and have recently seen a trailer house burn to the ground very quickly Danny called 911. He was then transferred to the fire department. In just a few minutes a fire truck with sirens blaring loud drove past our home. Then another came. We thought maybe the burning had gotten out of control. Danny went to check. Benjamin went with him. While they were out there Benjamin said, “Man, I caused this!!” Then they came back Danny told me he thinks the firemen were just trying to send a big message of no burning outside. They stayed there with lights flashing for about 15 minutes and then left and returned to the fire station.