Kiran Prasad (00:00)
This podcast contains sensitive material that may not be suitable for everyone.

The information shared is based on personal experiences

and not meant to replace medical or other professional help.

Kiran Prasad (00:13)
Meet Scott McKinley,

Scott McKinley (00:15)
Wake up that morning, you have no idea what's about to happen.

Kiran Prasad (00:18)
When you realized a fire was imminent, where were you and your family and what did you do?

Scott McKinley (00:24)
Well, the fire was starting to creep into the north end of our neighborhood, and there were no...

firefighters on site at the time.

My wife and my neighbors and I, we all got out there and we started fighting the fires ourselves.

The flames were 50 feet high. ⁓ The wind was blowing 60 miles an hour. When Brittany and I evacuated, once we saw that, we evacuated.

It doesn't cross your mind that this is the last time you're gonna see your house kind of a thing.

Kiran Prasad (00:49)
Then what possessed you to return to the scene and play your bagpipes in front of the cremated remains

of your home

as smoke still lingered in the air.

This moment on video went viral and became a symbol of resilience.

What do you do when it feels like the rug's been pulled from underneath your feet? In fact, the whole floor. Welcome to the Uprooted by Unwanted Change podcast about managing

Kiran Prasad (01:18)
life transitions.

Kiran Prasad (01:20)
I'm Kiran Prasad, teacher, speaker, and author of A Mindful Move, Feel at Home Again, based on my 29 house moves.

On each episode, we'll focus on a topic of unwanted change with guests sharing stories of resilience and insights into how they navigated their journeys. Together, we'll discover a community of inspiring individuals and create a system of support for one another. One such individual is Scott McKinley. Welcome, Scott. Thanks for...

Scott McKinley (01:53)
Hi, thank you for having me.

Kiran Prasad (01:56)
Thanks for joining us and welcome listeners. I'm so excited to be launching our very first episode with you. Today we focus on being uprooted by wildfire. It was actually the LA wildfires of January, 2025, that first motivated me to create this podcast.

Well, I was so saddened to see people having to evacuate due to the fires, including one of my relatives. Then later this year, when I heard about the wildfires that took homes in Oklahoma, I felt compelled to share about one family's strength throughout this all. Meet Scott McKinley, product manager by day, musician at heart. based in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

and Scott plays with the Celtic band Waxy Dargles, and he shares his life with his wife, Brittany, their young children and dogs. But On March 14th, 2025, everything changed for them when devastating fires swept through Stillwater, destroying homes, including Scott's. In the aftermath, as smoke still lingered in the air.

Scott stood before the ruins of

his

home

and played Amazing Grace on

his

bagpipes

Now This moment was captured on video and it went viral and became a symbol of resilience.

So Scott, let's begin first of all, by you sharing a little bit about your personal experience or yourself and your family.

Scott McKinley (03:31)
So for myself, I'm actually originally from College Station, Texas. My dad was a university professor and at age nine, I moved to North Carolina and then at age 13, I moved to Oklahoma, which is where I still call home today.

And I've lived there for 25 years. ⁓ I went to Oklahoma State University, got a master's degree from University of Central Oklahoma. ⁓ I've been a very, very active individual throughout my entire life. I have a pilot's license. Let's see, I've been a high school and college baseball and football referee for almost 20 years now.

I've done all kinds of things ranging from, I won a national championship at Oklahoma State and cheerleading of all things. And also ice hockey at Oklahoma State. I've been very, very blessed and fortunate that I've been able to do an awful lot of things. ⁓ My wife, Brittany, was born and raised in Stillwater and she's a middle school teacher. And she was also very active in athletics as well when she was younger, she played basketball and softball.

Then we have our two little girls and they are involved in a number of different activities, whether it's swimming or softball or they both love dance, which I'm still learning to appreciate. yeah, we are definitely an active family. I think that'd be the best way to describe us.

Kiran Prasad (04:48)
haha

Okay. tell us about your relationship with change because are you the type of person who thrives on it and finds it easy to bounce back?

Scott McKinley (05:03)
I think I found it kind of depends on what it is because there are certain things that I have found in life that I relish a challenge and I've always been kind of a person to say yes to something. I try to embrace the idea of, okay, there's something new, why not give it a shot? But then there's other areas in life where...

I love my job, I love where I live, I don't want that to change. Because I think everybody's like that. Once you find a place that you really like to live, those kind of things, you hope that that never changes. Although in the back of your mind, you always know that things can change at any time in life. That's just kind of the way that life is.

Kiran Prasad (05:41)
Absolutely. would you share with us about your wildfire experience? When you realized a fire was imminent, where were you and your family and what did you do? So many of us have no idea of what this kind of experience can be like.

Scott McKinley (05:59)
Well, I think to start with, it's one of those things when Wake up that morning, you have no idea what's about to happen. It's not like you had any time to prepare mentally or anything for it. ⁓ I work in Perry, Oklahoma, which is a small town, about 5,000 people. It's about 25 miles north of Stillwater. And I got a phone call about one or two o'clock in the afternoon that, you might want to head on back. And as I was driving home, I could see the fires were getting pretty

They were breaking out pretty good. In fact, the main entrance where I tried to get into my neighborhood was blocked off already by the police officers, but I knew the back way, so I had to go out of my way to get home. So I got home probably two o'clock or so, and my wife joined me very shortly after that. there's a field to the west of us. We saw it was on fire. Well, the fire was starting to creep into the north end of our neighborhood, and there were no...

firefighters on site at the time. So My wife and my neighbors and I, we all got out there and we started fighting the fires ourselves. You know, we've had garden hoses and buckets and towels and anything that we could find. The good news is, at least at that point, is our, my children and our pets were at my parents' place, so we knew they were safe, they were out of harm's way. The firefighter showed up and they put that fire out. So we thought everything was...

We saw some smoke coming to the south, but we didn't really think much of it at the time. And then all of sudden probably, we took a couple of items from the house, the firebox, that kind of deal. I put my bagpipes in there. But in the back of your mind, you don't think that this is, you think you're doing this and you're just gonna have to unpack it later, right? It doesn't cross your mind that this is the last time you're gonna see your house kind of a thing. And then all of a sudden from the south,

You know, I've lived in Oklahoma a long time and we're used to wind, we're used to tornadoes, but I've never seen anything like that. The flames were 50 feet high. ⁓ The wind was blowing 60 miles an hour. When Brittany and I evacuated, once we saw that, we evacuated. I mean, it was literally raining fire. I mean, the wind was blowing the embers probably 100, 200 yards in advance of the fire. And you just see grass fires just popping up as we were getting out of there. So it got a little...

It did get a little touch and go there at the end. But yeah, after that, we met up with the kids and my parents. And my parents live about a mile from us, and they had to evacuate as well. we actually, all of us, spent the night at Brittany's parents' ⁓ place that night. And we were very lucky and fortunate that my parents' house wasn't touched because if we would have lost two houses, that would have been really, really bad. But we were very fortunate with that.

Kiran Prasad (08:44)
That sounds so terrifying. I can't even imagine being in that position. Then what possessed you to return to the scene and play your bagpipes in front of the cremated remains of your home with smoke still wafting in the background, the viral video, a news story that I watched. That's how I heard about you.

Scott McKinley (09:07)
I think so that was the morning after we had gone, know, just, okay, I mean, we already knew that it had burned down, but we needed to go back and just, you I mean, you gotta go back at some point and see it. And I don't know something, I don't know what possessed me to, I think there was one of the things in overcoming adversity, there's a movie out there that I've always liked, it's called Legend of Bagger Vance And there's a scene in there where the little boy is kind of,

embarrassed that his dad is having to sweep streets because it's the Great Depression and those kind of things. Matt Damon's character talks to him. said, your daddy faced it. He stared adversity in the eye and he beat it back with a broom. And kind of my thinking on it is, you know what? I don't have a broom. Mine burned up, but I do have a bagpipe. That's basically use the tools that you have. And really it was just trying to bring some comfort because our neighbors were out there too. They lost their houses.

And it was just kind of a moment where I could bring a little bit of comfort to them. And also in Brittany's own words, she said that she wants to document it that, okay, we're playing Amazing Grace today, but when we rebuild, we're going to play something happier when the time comes. I do think a little bit it was just, okay, this is not going to beat us. we're not going to be beaten down. We've lost our house, but Stillwater is still our home and we're going to get through this no matter what.

or how long it takes.

Kiran Prasad (10:29)
I really love that. I'm so inspired and awed by your positivity and resilience. Have you always been like that?

Scott McKinley (10:37)
I've never thought of myself like that, but I do think that looking back on it, I think the way I've always just approached things is that, okay, if something needs to be done, well, you're just gonna have to do whatever it takes to get it done. When I look back, as I mentioned, I've been very fortunate to do a lot of things. So I actually signed to play football out of high school. I was a kicker.

I was never big enough to be a linebacker or anything like that, but I had a decent leg. Well, my junior year, I had a bone tumor in my right kicking toe. I had to go have surgery on that. I taught myself how to kick with my left foot. And then by my senior year, my right foot had healed and I worked hard enough that I was able to earn a college scholarship on that. ⁓ The other thing that happened my junior year is playing baseball. I hurt my right shoulder, had to have surgery on that, which effectively ended my baseball career. But then I ended up

working hard enough to be able to do cheerleading at Oklahoma State where I could eventually I was able to hold up another human being with that bad arm. You know, so I think it's, but at the same time I never thought of that as well, I'm gonna overcome adversity. was just something I, this is what needed to happen, this is what I wanted to happen and I'm just gonna do whatever it takes and I'm gonna work hard enough to make it happen. You know, the other thing I think that, ⁓

with both Brittany and myself is that's just the way we were brought up. That, okay, you do what you have to do and no matter what the obstacle is, you're gonna have to find a way to overcome it. ⁓ So I definitely think Brittany has that exact same mentality. And the other thing that I also would say that we also did with this particular ⁓ instance is we talked about it, that, you know, how do we make sure that the girls are, my little girls are doing okay.

We both decided that you know what they will mimic us. If we are strong, if we take care of things, if we do the right things, then they will mimic that as well. And I do think that that has worked out well for us, but my daughters have handled this as well as possible.

Kiran Prasad (12:39)
⁓ that's so great. children watch us and they do mimic from us we're their role models. And wow, that's amazing that in cheerleading you used your bad arm to hold up people because my daughter used to do cheerleading and I know what that involves, my goodness. so you mentioned that

After the fire, you stayed the night with family, but where have you been living after that and how have you been managing? What kind of support system have you had, if any?

Scott McKinley (13:12)
So we, this is one area where we feel like we have been very, very fortunate. ⁓ So we, for the first, I'd probably say two to three weeks, we were living with my parents. I was very blessed that I've got some of the best parents on the planet that do anything to help us. ⁓ That was getting a little tight though with the four of us having to share one bathroom and you know, just, so we needed a place to stay. ⁓ So we've, since then we've had a rent house.

which thankfully is only it's within two miles of our old house so we can go over check on things and it's pretty convenient. So yeah, we've been living in that rent house now for a month or so I think. It's been very well. Obviously there's not a whole lot of things in the house. We had to replace the couch and all right, we had to get a television and those kind of things. But I mean, there's a lot of things that we're going to have to.

that we're going to need ⁓ when we finally do get moved back into the house that we're going to rebuild. ⁓ But as of right now, I'd say we've gone back to living a minimalist lifestyle for sure.

Kiran Prasad (14:17)
And from what I saw on social media, you had so much support from the community, even with clothing. I mean, people don't realize, everything is gone.

Scott McKinley (14:28)
Yeah, I'll never forget that, particularly that first week where we were staying at my parents' house. We were literally having probably seven to eight visitors per day. People just coming by just wanting to help, bringing by gift cards, donating money, donating clothes, just donating everything that we could do. Our community, within a couple of days, they turned the armory into an area where you can go get any kind of food items you need.

I mean, and it's little things, the things you don't think about. It's like, we didn't have a can opener. You know, it's those kinds that when you don't realize how many things, items you actually use in your house, that when this happens, you just don't have. But it's been absolutely, the communities have been absolutely incredible. You know, and that's something that Brittany had talked a lot about on some of the interviews that she had done and Stillwater, Oklahoma, people don't realize

that we've seen tragedies in our, unfortunately in our town. in 2001, there was a plane crash that killed 10 members of our men's basketball team up in Colorado. Brittany and I lived through that. In 2011, there was another plane crash that killed our women's basketball coach and an assistant and some alumni. I actually played the bagpipes at that memorial service there in Gallagher Ivo Arena. I remember

we also had another situation where we had a car that drove through a crowd of people at a homecoming parade. you know, it's one of those things, this community has seen tragedy before, but it's absolutely incredible the way that the community rallies around the people when they need it. I think the difficult part for Brittany and I this time is we're usually the ones that are wanting to go in and help, and this time we were the ones that needed help. And

That was more unsettling to us than anything because We want to be the ones that do the helping, not the ones needing the help.

Kiran Prasad (16:26)
How lovely. And I think something I didn't mention and you could share is that it wasn't just your home and your neighbors' homes. I mean, do you know how many homes were affected in Stillwater or maybe Oklahoma?

Scott McKinley (16:40)
In our immediate area, there was almost 100 homes that were completely destroyed. I believe in Oklahoma, I think I heard the number was close to 500 total, that didn't include other buildings damage. ⁓ Our neighbors to the north, their home made it thankfully, they also had a lot of smoke damage and some other damage to the back part of their property. So

there's people that they may not have lost their homes, but they're still having to deal with insurance. They're still having ⁓ to go through some things that's definitely not pleasant. I think the other thing I would mention that I think is kind of unusual about this in Oklahoma is, you know, in Oklahoma, we're pretty used to tornadoes out here. We understand the risk. We know in the spring to pay attention to those kind of things.

But I would have never thought a wildfire would have taken the house. That's just something that's not something that we really have had to deal with out here. that definitely caught me off guard for sure.

Kiran Prasad (17:44)
Yeah, and I think everyone feels, it's not going to happen to me. This happens to other people. It's not going to happen to me ever,

Scott McKinley (17:50)
I was gonna say, yeah, that's not I think that's the weird thing. It's almost when it happens, it's almost surreal because you just in the back of your mind, you think that never that's never gonna happen to me. ⁓ So it's almost it was almost a surreal time to go there. And you realize I just slept in this house last night and now it's gone. I mean, that's just a that's a that's a very unique feeling. ⁓ You know, the other feeling that kind of came over me was

That first day I looked in the mirror and I realized that the only clothes that I owned were the clothes that I was wearing. That kind of struck me a little bit. But at the same time, I told Brittany I can't make it better, all better in one day, but I can make today better than yesterday and literally take it one day at a time.

Kiran Prasad (18:34)
Yeah, I love that. Have you been able to go back to the site of your home to try to recover anything? Because I know in the video, it looked like ash and rubble when you were playing your bagpipes in front of it, what was that like? Did you find anything intact?

Scott McKinley (18:50)
Well, it was really trying to think what did we find. we actually, we did find there was a porcelain cross that my youngest daughter had in her room and somehow it survived. And especially knowing it was on the second floor, somehow it survived. But beyond that, there really wasn't much of anything that we could recover. You know, that was an interesting thing when the insurance adjuster

was talking to me. said, you know, he sees disasters all the time. And he said, tornadoes are bad. And he said, I don't want to belittle that in any way, shape or form. said, but fires are worse because with tornadoes, a lot of things can be recovered. And a fire, just, takes everything. I mean, there was literally nothing left. It even, it even took my, little pedal boat that I had down on the down end, it was sitting in the water and now it's been melted.

So yeah, it literally took pretty much everything.

Kiran Prasad (19:49)
That's hard losing so many things. I know the most important things in life and not things. but still, was there anything sentimental or irreplaceable you felt

Scott McKinley (19:58)
Were handful of things that were just, man, you know, man, I wish we hadn't lost that. know, like my wife lost a we had a hundred and twenty five year old piano that had been, you know, as a family heirloom. But that was probably the heaviest piece of furniture I've ever moved in my life. That was very, very heavy. We lost that. I lost a number of my kilts. I lost all my yearbooks from when I was in school.

We lost the the girls baby books, we lost those things ⁓ You know, so there's there's a handful of things that we lost but at the same time, you know we've had a lot of people, ask me, what's it like to lose everything and My my response and I mean, understand what they mean, but my response to that is we didn't lose everything We lost some things and that's just kind of the way that we've we've approached it ⁓ you know because at the end of the day

the memories are still there. My kids are still safe. My pets are still safe. I still got music. ⁓ You know, it didn't, if anything, I feel like I'm going to be stronger and a better person because of it. That's just the way I choose to approach it. I feel like, and this is a commentary on society. I feel like as society, we are too attached to things. We have really gotten.

way over attached to things. And I think something like this just brings home that what really matters is the memories that you have of your family and your friends and being able to spend more time with your family and your friends. Because those are the things that I really cherish.

Kiran Prasad (21:29)
I totally agree with that sentiment. Inevitably, we're going to feel grief in such a situation Grief is still underlying. But this helps, this strong positive attitude,

Because you're not focusing on what you've lost, you're looking at what you still have left in your life. Is anything else that's helped you through the grief process?

Scott McKinley (21:50)
You know, I think, I mean, obviously, you know, my wife is a very strong person as well. are my parents or her parents. Our church family has been absolutely phenomenal. We go to a little bitty small country church up there in Perry. And, you know, I think just there's been a number of people, you know, there's other people in our community that have lost their houses, whether it was through a tornado or we actually had somebody that we know that they lost their house in a fire too. So just talking to them,

understanding what we what we needed, You know, I think for me the the most difficult part is is is one I'm trying to grieve for losing the house, but I knew that I had to get to work on getting through the steps in the process to making things better going foward. And I think the the challenge for me with that is is that's a process that obviously I've never been through my wife had never been through. So having people to help us

understand, better understand insurance, better understand, you know, even taxes. You know, there's tax implications on things like this. It's those kind of things that you just don't, you know you have to deal with it, but at the same time, you're trying to deal with grief as well. I would like it, and obviously it's not the same, when you go through the death of a loved one, you know, you're grieving because you lost a loved one, but you're also having to deal with, okay, you're having to deal with the

the paperwork, the death certificates, dealing with the funeral homes, those kind of things. So in some ways, kind of, for lack of better term, you almost kind of have to postpone the grief until after you can get these other things. You're so focused on the task at hand that you never actually allow yourself time to truly grieve what happened to you.

Kiran Prasad (23:34)
And Scott, you mentioned about your children, try to be a great role model for them so they can mimic, also have you managed to create any, sense of normalcy since then? Because it must be so much to process.

Through the many unwanted changes I've faced, I found getting back to some regular routines, especially for my children, it helped provide an anchor amidst the uncertainty and chaos. So have you managed to get back quickly to some structure.

Scott McKinley (24:05)
Yes, that was something that Brittany and I talked about very early on that we wanted to keep the girls, know, so we're lucky. They, love going to school. you know, they went back to school the very next week. ⁓ We got them back to doing their activities. like said, they love doing dance and swimming and those kinds of things. ⁓ You know, and the other thing is, and this goes to the community, it seemed like there for a while they were getting a new toy every single day from somebody in the community. ⁓

Kiran Prasad (24:31)
haha

Scott McKinley (24:32)
They thought that was pretty neat. think getting back into some kind of a routine, we're trying to plan some type of vacation this summer with them. Like my oldest daughter played in the elementary school talent show and I was able to play with her the other day. I think that was good. We kind of tried to shield them.

Obviously, we've been under a lot of stress. mean, I think anybody would understand that. But we don't want to transfer that stress onto them. ⁓ at the same time, I also want to be able to use this opportunity for them to develop their own resilient minds as well. I want them to remember how their parents handled a situation like this.

Because at some point in their life, they're going to face adversity as well. So I think that was at the back of my mind as well that I want my kids to develop some of that. But again, we shielded them from some things, but other things we wanna make sure that they know what's going on and we communicated with them.

Kiran Prasad (25:35)
is there anything that surprised you while going through this wildfire experience? What surprises did you face?

Scott McKinley (25:42)
I think for me, I mean obviously, having to deal with insurance, building a house, all those kind of things, I think what amazed me throughout the entire process was how many people wanted to come in and help, How many people donated, how many people did, even just ⁓ the little things. And sometimes it was people that I hadn't seen in a very long time, but we were friends 20 years ago kind of a thing.

I think if nothing else, it's kind of been a, you know, I think that there's a lot of ugliness in the world, that's just kind of the way this world is. But I think sometimes we forget that there 's a lot of good people out there. ⁓ And because we've, had people that helped us from multiple countries. We had people of all different races, of all the different backgrounds, of all different political affiliations. It didn't matter. They just wanted to help. ⁓ And I think that that's something that we

in our society today, we don't hear enough of that. That, you know what, your neighbors, there's actually some pretty good people out there. And that's something that I, another thing that I would say that I, when I lived in North Carolina, we lived through several hurricanes and there were houses that were destroyed in my neighborhood. Luckily ours, we didn't have any damage then. And it was the same thing I found out here is.

the people that are going to help you are your next door neighbors. When something like this happens, it's going to be the people living right next door that are going to be the biggest help for you. It's not some agency or anything like that. It's going to be your neighbor that's right down the street that's going to help you. I wish I had my house back, but I also love having the knowledge of how many good people there are out there and that I know I've got people I can count on.

Hopefully they know they can count on me if something like that ever happened to them.

Kiran Prasad (27:27)
Oh yes, that's wonderful. You had great neighbors. You were all helping each other through this.

And knowing what you know now, Scott, would you have done anything differently?

Scott McKinley (27:39)
I probably would have had a bigger garden hose. No, I think, it's hard for me to, it's hard for me to look back and say that anything that we did was wrong, right, know, whatever. ⁓ You know, that's actually a good question because I haven't really had, I haven't really had time to sit back and reflect on it. I think the, I think the,

Kiran Prasad (27:42)
Hahaha!

Scott McKinley (28:05)
The biggest thing that I have learned throughout this whole thing is that yes, these things can happen to you. And it's one of those things that you need to be, it's not that you can't prepare for every outcome. That's not realistic. ⁓ what I do think what is helping is that knowing that no matter what comes your way, that you're going to, I know how I'm gonna handle it. And I think that would be the biggest thing that I look at going backwards.

Like I said, this is something I never thought would happen. But once it did happen, I knew in back of my mind this is how I'm gonna handle it. And I think that's all that you can do whenever adversity strikes.

Kiran Prasad (28:49)
What coping skills through all this time have you seen in yourself and others that have helped you through this time?

Scott McKinley (28:58)
You know, I think for me what helped me was focusing on the task that you got. You know, they say work is good for grief and for me it was focusing on what the next task needed to be. The immediate task and those tasks have changed as your needs will change when you go through this. You know, because the first day we just needed some, we needed a change of clothes.

You know, luckily we were very fortunate that we had a place to stay because there were people that, they had to go get a hotel room because they didn't, you know, they didn't have family that lived nearby. but then it changed from, okay, now we've got enough clothes. Okay, now we need a place to rent. Well, now we've got to start worrying about, we need a little bit of furniture in there. Then it turned into, we need to focus on, but now we've got to get the lot cleared so that then we can eventually start working to rebuild. ⁓

So to me, think the biggest thing when I looked at it is just I kind of consumed myself with what's the next task that needs to be completed. again, like I said earlier, that kind of makes it to where you don't really have time to grieve. But the good news is that's allowing time to pass, but you're also being able to get certain things done that you're going to have to get those things are going to have to be done.

Kiran Prasad (30:11)
Yes, I'm sure your to-do list just keeps growing. I was thinking of you as a project manager, your project manager skills, because this is a project to manage.

Scott McKinley (30:20)
Yeah, it's and I think the most difficult part of this is knowing what's the next thing that needs to come back that you need to do. You know, you've got all these things that you need to do, but you know, for a while there, I'm having to deal with insurance and having to deal with ⁓ some FEMA stuff, having to deal with, you know, we do have a ⁓ builder. Now we're having to look at architectural plans. ⁓ So it's kind of, it's project management, but

you don't know exactly what the next step in the process is. So you start making some phone calls and asking questions. That's really all you can do.

Kiran Prasad (30:54)
Yeah, tell us Scott, mentioned about rebuilding. Tell us a little bit about your rebuilding efforts right now, where you're at with that. And I love what you said about that. you're rebuilding in the same spot and you're looking forward to the block party you're all going to have at the end of it.

Scott McKinley (31:11)
So luckily the lot has been cleared and it's ready to be rebuilt on. So now we have a builder, we're working with an architect. The one thing that I would say that I would tell everybody to do is double check your insurance. I would check our insurance once a year as most people probably do.

Our home was insured. If you go off the market value with the county assessor says that our house is worth, we were insured, absolutely properly insured. But when you look at the replacement cost on that, replacement cost has gone above and beyond that. So we are gonna have to build a little bit of a smaller house, which that's okay. ⁓ We're still gonna be able to have a nice house, but ⁓ the thing with building the house is, at least we're able to,

take things that we did like from the old house and then we're also gonna be able to take things that we didn't like from the old house and we're gonna be able to change them. We had a detached garage which we never liked because in Oklahoma it's either 20 to below zero or 111 degrees. That's what we always say around here. Yeah, the weather in Oklahoma is something else. So there's a number of things that we're gonna be able to change.

Kiran Prasad (32:14)
Whoa.

Scott McKinley (32:23)
And I'm hoping, I think we may be able to break ground on the new house. I'm hoping maybe July, August timeframe. We still got a little bit of work to do with planning. think for a while there, things were moving very quickly in getting everything cleaned up and cleared off. But now we're kind of in ⁓ a pattern where it's gonna be a little bit before you see progress at the site. But there is work going on behind the scenes.

Kiran Prasad (32:48)
I'm so excited for you all. And are there any other insights you want to leave listeners with about facing wildfire?

Scott McKinley (32:56)
Yeah, the one thing that I never, you know, when you think about fires, you think about fire safety on the inside of the house. You know, you want to make sure that your stove isn't going to light the curtain on fire, you know, that those kinds of things. But you never really think about ⁓ outside, you know, we, still don't know. And probably, we probably never will know exactly how the fire got started. And we actually got started with our house. the one thing that I do know,

because with that 60 mile an hour wind, was embers that were flying out. And we had some vegetation that was very close to the house. I wonder if that caught it. Another one that they talked about that can do it is if you haven't cleaned out your gutters in a while and you've got dry leaves up there and an ember catches there, that can catch it. So that's just the thing I'd say just from a wildfire standpoint is we always think about

about fire safety on the inside of the house. if you're in an area where it's possible, there could be a wildfire. Think about some of those things outside. Where do you have vegetation? Have you cleaned out your gutters? All those kind of things.

Kiran Prasad (34:03)
Those are great points, I would have never thought about that.

And if our listeners would like to reach out to support your rebuilding efforts,

with you and your neighbors,

how can they do that? And we'll try and list that information below as well.

Scott McKinley (34:17)
So yeah, so we have several GoFundMe's that are out there. ⁓ You know, the main one I would say is the one that was created by my band, the Waxy Dargles.

those donations are safe and secure and everything is, it goes directly. Basically, that's where we're at right now is we're in rebuilding mode. You know, there's a lot of things that we're gonna have to, we're about to spend a lot of money to try to get everything rebuilt. And yeah, I'd say that'd be the best way to do it.

And even if it's not a monetary donation, know what, the support, even people that have given us kind words and words of support, those help too.

Again, it's just been unbelievable, the outpouring that people, ⁓ you know, and a lot of people on there, we see the names and I look at Brittany, I'm like, do we know them? And she's like, no, we don't. It's just, it's amazing that there's people out there that don't know me.

Kiran Prasad (35:08)
You

Scott McKinley (35:13)
Will never get to meet me, but yet they want me to know that I'm cared about and that there's somebody out there is wanting to help.

Kiran Prasad (35:20)
Great.

Scott, I feel honored and really appreciate you being here today. I know you're so busy with all that's going on, but I'm sure you have inspired so many, people today with your resilience, your ability to rebuild your life and even help others along the way because I know you have been doing that. Now, if you enjoyed listening to today's episode and found it helpful,

Please subscribe, share and join our uprooted by unwanted change Facebook group. We would love to hear from you. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty,

Kiran Prasad (35:55)
may you find peace and rootedness.

Kiran Prasad (35:58)
And on that we're going to close out to some of Scott's wonderful healing music.