Back in October, we had a fire on our property.

(For those keeping track, yes, this was a mere six weeks after we had moved on to said property.)

Not the good kind of fire, all warmth and cheer, crackling merrily as you roast hot dogs or marshmallows.

Not the useful kind, clearing dead brush and branches, making way for new life.

Not the manageable kind, easily controlled and maintained.

No.

This fire was the threatening kind, the kind that requires a wildland fire response, with tankers circling overhead and engines roaring their sirens and personnel in full protective gear.

To state the obvious: I do not recommend having such a fire on (or anywhere near) your property.

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As luck – or, perhaps, the inscrutable will of the Facebook algorithm gods – would have it, a few weeks after the fire, I stumbled across some chatter about it on one of the local groups.

First was the initial informational post, listing size and general location. It noted that structures were threatened and that a large response was on the way.

And then, of course, came the comments: some expressing concern and worry, some praising the quick work of the firefighters, and, because social media is what it is, some angrily lambasting those who were behind the fire.

Specifically, the “crazy people” who were their “idiot neighbors.”

(Even more specifically, in case you aren’t paying attention: me.)

There were eyewitnesses, of course. One of the commenters said he’d been driving by when it broke out, that he’d talked to the first responders and our immediate neighbors, that everyone said it was an out-of-control burn pile. He could see it from the road, he said, and that’s exactly what it looked like.

Nobody had spoken to us about what had happened on our property that day, but they knew where the evidence pointed: we had intentionally started a fire well before the first soaking rain of the season, on a day when the air was so dry it crackled and the wind was howling through the trees.

In an area designated a “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone” by the State Fire Marshal, there is no greater sin.

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Except – spoiler alert – we did not, in fact, start a burn pile that day.

Here’s what actually happened:

I was standing in my kitchen when the GFCI directly in front of me began sparking and smoking. I grabbed my phone and ran out to our electrical panel to shut off the main breaker, dialing Jonathan as I went. When I got there, I found flames surrounding the pole and underneath our propane tank.

Later, once the emergency was past, we learned there had been multiple failures: from the transformer to the main power drop on the property, in the primary panel, between the primary panel and the subpanel on our house. We aren’t sure which shorted first.

At the time, though, all I knew was that there were flames in the dry grass surrounding our power pole and underneath my propane tank. My propane tank, which was mere yards away from the house we had just moved into. The house in which my four kids were playing.

It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life.

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The Facebook crowd had good reason to be jumpy. After all, just three years ago, this entire neighborhood was evacuated because of a wildfire that claimed 102 homes. The house across the street, the one with nothing but the outline of a foundation left, was one of the unlucky ones. Blackened stumps and branches on the hill sloping down toward the river still stand in stark outline against the sky, easily visible from the road.

If you don’t live in a part of the world that has a “fire season,” if your daily commute has never taken you past a sign imploring you to have your go-bag ready, if you’ve never loaded your family and all the precious possessions that can fit into your vehicle as smoke billowed on the horizon, it might be hard to appreciate the level of concern the threat of fire can bring.

I’m sure the idea of a fire again, in this same neighborhood, brought back flashbacks, stirred up past trauma and hurt and fear that informed the way these neighbors of mine responded to the current threat.

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I like to think that I would be cool and calm and collected under pressure. That I would meet emergencies head on, with my wits still about me.

Yeah. About that.

When I saw those flames, I dropped my phone and sprinted for the nearest hose, yelling the entire time.

“Fire. Help! Fire! Somebody help! There’s a fire!”

I sounded wild, deranged, hysterical. I know this because my phone had kept doing what I had told it to do – that is, call Jonathan – and he had not answered. And so he has a voicemail, one he has declined to delete, that is several minutes of my cries for help.

Let’s just say I was not at my most level-headed at that particular moment in time.

(For a few weeks after the fire, my kids would mimic my shouts as we told others about what had happened. They’re good at keeping me humble.)

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Here’s the thing about those Facebook neighbors of mine. If we had actually done what they thought we had done, what the evidence suggested we had done, what reliable eyewitnesses claimed we had done . . . well, then, they would have had every right to be furious with us. Their condemnation would have been just.

If I had been in their shoes, I would have been angry, too.

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Someone was watching out for us that day.

I was home, looking right at the outlet that blew up when the power surge came through, and I had enough presence of mind to go out to the panel to investigate.

On a red flag day, when the wind was howling everywhere else, it was dead calm on our property, with air still enough that at least three of the firefighters commented on it to me.

The fire burned to within a foot or two of the massive piles of stacked brush and grass left behind by the previous owner, but didn’t ignite them.

And, perhaps most interestingly, the contractor working on the second home on the property was still here, thirty minutes past when he would normally leave on a Friday afternoon, because he felt like there was something he still needed to do. He was the one who actually got a hose on the fire while I was talking to dispatch, who started to get the flames knocked down before the engines arrived.

Some might have seen the fire, and all that followed it – a week without power, two without hot water, several days without propane – as a sign of judgment, as God trying to get our attention. And perhaps there was some of that involved; I certainly had – and still have – plenty to learn, plenty of ways to grow and change.

But, even if He was sending us a wake-up call, He also provided protection, and presence, and peace in the midst of it all, and it’s good to remind myself of that when I’m tempted to dwell on how hard things have been.

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By the time I saw that Facebook post, comments had been closed.

Which is just as well. Someone – someone I don’t know – had already come back and said it wasn’t a burn pile after all, so the truth was there for those who were willing to seek it out. Anything I would have added would have come from a place of defensiveness, not from love, and I’m not sure that me joining the conversation would have done anything to promote truth, beauty, or goodness in our community.

Still, I’ve thought about my Facebook neighbors – who are, in fact, my actual real-life neighbors – quite a bit these past few months. In fact, I’ve probably allowed their comments far more residence in my brain than a social media post warrants.

What if they still believe the wrong things about me? What if there’s frustration, or anger, or resentment still festering? What if they drive past my house on their way in to work each morning and shake their heads at the reckless people who, because they had no regard for their community, almost burned the neighborhood to the ground?

It doesn’t feel great to think that others might have a low opinion of me, and, if I’m honest, there’s a large part of me that wants to control the narrative, to get out ahead of anything negative.

I can’t, of course, and it would be silly to try.

(Anything that comes to mind is just ridiculous: write an explanatory post in local groups, three months after the fact? Go door-to-door and canvas people for their opinions, then set them straight? Do a leaflet campaign?)

And so, when my thoughts do circle back to wondering what others might think, I’ve been trying to remind myself of what is within my power to do:

Be open and ready to have conversations with people, should I ever have the opportunity.

Live my life in such a way that, if I do happen to come across someone who thinks poorly of me, the fruit of the Spirit in me shines brighter than anything they might have heard.

And, of course, do everything within my power to never have an uncontrolled fire here again.