Wildfire Update: September 16

 

I hadn’t planned on blogging about the wildfires near me in western Oregon – I like to think my blog is a pleasant place where readers get a whiff of nature; but now that things are improving, I’m motivated. I won’t dwell on the misery, instead I want to focus on a few observations … a different focus other than our media coverage.  Other than a brief introduction, I don’t need to repeat information readily available on the news.  

 

The fires started September 8.   Very unusual winds came from the east, bringing hot, dry air from the high desert.  The dry winds slipped over the Cascade Mountains and suddenly we had several large fires in the Cascades.  Our Governor Brown says in 72 hours 900,000 acres of Oregon burned.  Our yearly average is only 500,000.  National news made the mistake of saying 500,000 people were evacuated.  Actually the number is around 40,000 and the rest were put on alert.  

My journal page pretty much says what happened from my perspective:  

Today was supposed to be just another hot day … too hot to go ‘bugging’ (we photograph insects a lot).  I had just started eating lunch when I noticed a dark cloud hugging the western horizon.  With a sinking heart I knew it was wildfire. 

A big, thick pancake of smoke eased over all of Roseburg.  I got on the internet and found three fresh fires.  Not only that, but Lane County to the north is erupting and Insterstate 5 has had to close south of us.”  

 

At 3:50 PM I couldn’t even take a picture with my camera set on automatic.  I had to set manually.  I turned the lights off in the living room and couldn’t read.   Really hot weather was predicted.  I worried. Is it going to be like sitting in a hot car.  Just how hot we would get with all our windows closed up tight?  We don’t have air conditioning.  I assumed we fry.  Big surprise.  The heavy smoke shielded us from the sun.  Instead of roasting, on two of the days we turned the furnace on!  Plus, the air quality in the house stayed pretty good.

 

Even though we have felt reasonably safe from the fires, I feel a little as though we have been thrown into a COVID-19 quarantine – only with bad air.  Other than quick trips to the mail box and to wet down some shrubbery we have stayed indoors … nine days of indoors and we’ll probably have more as the wind shifts back and forth. My planned grocery trip was for a week ago.  We’ve held off, not wanting to stand around the parking lot waiting for the wonderful store near us to bring our groceries out.  I look forward to finally placing an order tomorrow.  

 

Meanwhile its tinder dry around here. Two years ago we took ‘defensible space’ seriously and took 70 cans full of blackberries and brush to the mulcher.  Even though we already have done a pretty good job of removing burnable vegetation from around the house, Dale decided to wet down whatever is near the house.  He fooled the termites!   Usually a big emergence happens when the fall rains come, but, all of a sudden, the yard was full of flying termites.  They had a horrid surprise when they emerged – bone dry and smoky.

Stellar's Jay -- taken up in the mountains

Most insects disappear when it gets smoky – that’s why bee keepers use smoke to calm their bees. Meanwhile our bird feeder birds seem to be gobbling down our offerings.  Perhaps there are getting fewer insects than usual and eager for our food.  We even had a Stellar’s jay in the yard today.  I think that is the first one in all the thirty plus years we have lived here.  They are common in the mountains and wooded areas, but not in town.  He probably is wandering about looking for a new home. 

 

At noon today (Wednesday, Sept 16) we saw a change coming.  The air quality finally dropped out of ‘hazardous’.  When I painted the red sun midday (at the top of this blog), I was already excited. The local internet was full of friends heaving a sigh of relief.   Then, late Wednesday, did you hear a big cheer coming from Roseburg?  Oh my gosh!  Our air quality actually dropped from hazardous to green in about eight hours thanks to a shift in the winds.  Emotionally it feels as if the fires are under control. They aren’t, and won’t be for weeks, but they are slowed way down  … and what did I do?  I grabbed my vacuum cleaner and started vacuuming.   After the news telling me not to vacuum for days, I figured I finally had a window of opportunity.  I never knew I was that domestic.

 

My last observation also reflects on my domesticity.  We’ve been running an air filter in our dining room.  It sucks in air and whooshes it up and away – up towards the ceiling.  I had no idea I had so many cobwebs up there.  They all got dusted with tiny particles and now I can see them.  Guess I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow.  

... and just to make you smile, here is a little barn owlet.

Oregon Wildfires

Early morning from my front door -- two weeks ago

Are you familiar with the word ‘estivate’?  i.e. to go into a prolonged state of torpor or dormancy .  I feel as though Mother Nature is causing Dale and me to estivate.  We are like an old tortoise in the Southwest who has dug underground, pulled its head in, and waits for better times.  We open one eye, take a peek outside, and dig back down again.  ….. or I look at the air quality index and think about whether I dare open our windows up for the night in order to cool the house down. 

It is murky out there …. Smoky!  Way too smoky.  Most of the past month has varied between a little smoke, a lot of smoke, and way too smoky.  We  did have two glorious blue sky days last week.   Suddenly our world sparkled again, the birds were happy, and insects were busy catching up on their endeavors.  The wind had switched to the northwest, bringing fresh Pacific air. 

Takenitch Lake near the Oregon Coast on one of our rare blue sky days

Oregon is having one of its worst fire seasons.  Over 500 square miles are burning and each day the number grows.  The largest, the ‘Chetco Bar Fire’ is over 140,000 acres.  There are so many fires burning right now that they group them into ‘complexes.’  When it is so dry, firefighters can’t begin to put them all out .  They try to save structures and figure out where best to use their available resources.  Oregon currently has about 10,000 people on the fires and more coming.  Some National Guard troops are being called in to help.  If we were the only state involved, we’d be getting more help from other states; but all too many of the surrounding states are in the same predicament. 

On Aug 13 I blogged about fires upriver from us.  The one I photographed has grown to 4566 acres as of today, but they did succeed in keeping it on one side of the highway and protected the nearby homes on the other side.  The little fires upriver closed the highway a few days after I blogged and it remains closed.  Several fires in that area have joined together and have grown to 18,387 acres.  There is a little community up there with 24 people.  They lost power … and so the food in their freezers.  Then they had to evacuate for several days.  They are finally allowed to go home but have to travel the long way around ( approximately 300 miles) instead of the relatively short trip home from Roseburg or Glide.

Burnt pine needles and ash on the hood of our car

At first the smoke here was tolerable, but the fires kept growing and a little over a week ago one started only about thirty miles from us.  I assume that fire is the one that sprinkled ash on us late one day – little flakes came drifting down.   When I went out to the car in the morning, I found burnt pine needle on the hood.  When I touched one, Poof!  It crumpled into nothingness.  Just a wisp of ash.

My painting of the evening sun

I decided to write about the fires because after talking to two sets of Wisconsin friends, I realized there hasn’t been much on the news about Oregon’s fires.  Of course hurricane Harvey is the big news, but fires don’t seem to get any attention.  What about the hundreds of acres of forest that are burning?  Even our local newspaper concentrates on road closures and evacuation levels for the few homes that are affected. 

 Just outside of town about a week ago

Where I live, I’m quite safe.  I’m in town.  Most lawns are browned, but the grass is short.  We have a law in town that says we must cut weeds and grasses grasses before they get twelve inches tall.  When a local fire gets going, the fire trucks are on it immediately.  The Umpqua River flows through town so there is plenty of water.  Most people, who live near town, create a ‘defensable space’ around their homes.

The big issue right now is that we are having a heat wave … temperatures of over 100 degrees for 3 or 4 days.  Lousy weather for the firefighters.   Soon we’ll be back in the 80s and 90s, but fire season will last until the rains come — probably not before early October.