We encountered this fire, ironically, when coming back from church on easter morning. We had left our city life behind for the week and had come down to the countryside for our easter break. On easter morning, after being at church for the past two and a half hours - witnessing one of the longest, drawn-out services i think I've ever sat through - we were driving back over the long, twisted roads back to the little cottage we had been staying in... And on the horizon, we saw it.
The plume of smoke was so large that you could see it from miles around. At first, because we were quite far away from our cottage, we thought that it had engulfed the little house and all our belongings! But then as we neared, we realised that it was a little way down the hill to the beach that lay at the bottom. Simply out of curiosity, we drove on, going past the cottage and down the hill towards the thick smoke.
We found a little view point on the hill where we got out to appreciate what was really going on. The fire had engulfed the gauze on half of the side of the opposing hill, and was rapidly eating its way across. We saw that by the time we had got there, it had already eaten its way right cross, as there was a massive black patch where the fire brigade had managed to put the fire out (Or that the fire had died out and moved on as there was no more gauze for it to eat up.) With a little dismay, I realised that there were a couple of tents right by that charred patch. I later found out that it was the illegal tent pitchers on the side of the hill that had started the fire in the first place when making a small campfire to heat up their food. But from that small campfire, came the roar of flames that almost at once engulfed the hill.
I make this all sound very dismal, but actually this whole event made my easter one of the most exciting ones I've ever had - Even if it was hilariously ironic.
Someone had obviously not said their prayers in church that morning and god had smote back to teach them a lesson.
