While in class I overhear other students talk of this fire, boasting about how school may soon be canceled.

At first my reactions are identical to theirs, but once I hear of the location everything around me is shut out and all I can think about is my home, my family and my belongings. You never think much of it until it comes right there knocking on your door, literally.

Thankfully, the firefighters beat the flames in a foot race to my front door. They told my family to evacuate our home, while I was at school that day. Not knowing if you are going to be able to come home to a house is something no one should ever have to feel.

There is no way I am able to focus while the security of my everything is in jeopardy. I never thought this would happen. The only thing I can focus on is the fact that I really have no idea what is going to happen to my house, my room and my things. Even if I wanted to leave now, it would take me hours just to get to the side streets that lead anywhere near my home.

In school I felt trapped. When I left school at about 3 p.m. that evening, I got a phone call saying that I should stay at a family friend’s house and not even try to go home because the traffic was growing, along with the flames and smoke.

As if life’s stresses aren’t already overbearing, now this happens. When I was finally able to get home it was dark out, therefore the flames lit up the sky brighter than all the street lights combined, though it was not nearly as bad as it was in the day time.

It was still something from a horror story. This is my town, this is where I was born and raised and to see this uncontrollable fire destroy everything in its path is simply devastating. I never thought this would happen. I finally arrived home at 10:37 p.m. that October night. When I stepped foot inside my door to see my family members, I felt a sense of relief for myself and sympathy for those who lost their homes, many of them being my neighbors and friends.