In lue of a review, due to unforeseen flames

I had been planning to put up my thoughts on a certain series that has been one of my favourites, but the recent circumstances have taken my interest in such writing out of the way.

A little too close to our home for too much comfort, a fire is burning in the wooded region; and come the fall of night, the firefighting effort has necessarily been restricted to the use of ground forces. It is unsettling to hear the siren calls for hours on end with intermitent pauses — a sensation of uncertainty the likes of which you can't quite explain to others, I guess, not unless they've been in a similar situation.

Forest fires, for lack of a better word, are a terrible thing in themselves; but when you feel threatened by the possibility of the flames approaching you, when you have to start considering the possibilities and recount your emergency training (thinking what you'll have to take with you; what you'll have to accept leaving behind, possibly letting them go to the flames; how to carry off your pets that you can carry off, thinking about the fish you can't save; the things, the books and beloved gifts that you have to leave behind, not knowing what will befall them)... No matter what, it leaves you a little stunned, it jostles something within you, having to think whether you should perhaps stay awake to keep watch whether the flames will climb over the crest of that hill from which the smoke bellowed all afternoon.

It's times like these where you feel the surge of conflicting emotions: you are the only one back home and thus cannot leave to help fight the flames back; but you feel like you should be doing something; hence you pick up the torchlight and hope things will be well soon.

The flames are not dying out yet: the winds are too strong still, and the fire has split in parts and spreading further apart; the firefighters' numbers are thin. At least we know that, by tomorrow, more firefighters will come over — they're crossing the Aegean from Athens and Salonica both! — and more aircraft as well. So, in the long run, it's a waiting game of sorts... until tomorrow.