Fire

Oregon is on fire – one more reason to really dislike summer, now I’m adding wildfires to the list. Which I never liked before, but didn’t have a lot of personal experience with them. Now that I have, let me say I’m not a fan. This has been unlike anything I have ever experienced, 2020 has been nothing but devastating once in a lifetime events. I’m rather afraid what else could happen at this point.

We had some very hot temperatures and a freak windstorm – and by September Oregon is incredibly dry as it doesn’t rain in the summer. The combination has just been lethal and heartbreaking. It was so weird to go off to teach in Sherwood, where things were windy, but sunny and uneventful – then check my phone and see devastation everywhere. The drive home was crazy, going from blue skies into apocalyptic conditions with the smoke from the fires both from the East and to the South. That first day Hubbard was just on the border, by the next day we woke up to this:

That was at 9am, earlier it was so dark even though the sun had been up for hours all you could see was a dark red purple glow. You’d go outside for a few minutes and it was so red when you came back inside the normal lights looked unnaturally blue. Ash fell like rain and the air quality was so poor it was off the charts.

We are probably 15 miles from the fires, but have, thankfully, never been in any danger. The surrounding farmland acts as a fire break and the winds finally died down as well. Knock on wood, never ended up with any level of evacuation – just the smoke, and a lot of it. Everyday it was a different color and feel, but thankfully it’s getting better – though still not something you should be out in. The dogs were SUPER BORED, but they are good sports about it all. You have to wonder what they think about it, but maybe being border collies they don’t really notice – they don’t seem to, anyway. Big boy dorks.

Know a lot of people that have were evacuated, one terrible loss down south in the fires in Southern Oregon, but so far up north no one has lost their home here. Just breaks my heart, I can’t imagine. Maddy was evacuated and had to leave the sheep and chickens – there was no time. Thankfully the locals in her area are fighting fires and saving homes out there – and, so far, her place has been spared. I went up to help get the sheep out right before the evacuated the whole of Molalla. Way more people were still in their homes with all their livestock still, I was surprised to see so many. Thankfully Maddy’s sheep and chickens were quite happy to get out of there and seemed none the worse for wear. Now it’s just hoping her place makes it, there are multiple fires right near there – and it’s hard to get any information about what’s happening.

The first few days I just spent a lot of time trying to get fire reports and following local groups that seemed to have more information. There is no one one place you can go for information, the counties seem to be all on their own and Oregon itself doesn’t seem to have any organization at all. Most of the fire and rescue efforts seem to be volunteer, not with any overall organization. The lack of communication and information has caused crazy conspiracy theories to run rampant, as well as so many people going on wild goose chases trying to help people. So, yeah, in terms of government response to a widespread crisis, pretty discouraging to think this is it.

So Molalla, where I spend so much time these days … I don’t know how much of it will be left in the end. Pretty sure my hiking trails burned down, but even then, I doubt they’ll let anyone in to that area for quite some time. I’m hoping for the best and my heart goes out to everyone affectd, 500,000 people evacuated and so many homes lost.

It’s been really hard to focus or get anything done, and the dogs have been mostly patient with chewies and playing in the living room. We’ve done a little training with conditioning exercises and working on putting rings on cones and matching colors. Somehow Asher apparently never learned some basic conditioning stuff like individual leg lifts and elevated squats, so we we’ve been working on that too. They are good sports. This has not been a good year for dogs, it seems like as soon as we finally get back into things the world goes to pot again.

After what seemed like an eternity, the winds changed and rains washed away the smoke. The fires won’t be under control for a long time, but the big danger appears to be over with. It is so weird to suddenly be back to normal life and normal weather. Certainly makes you appreciate it. I am not at all sad to say goodbye to fires and summer, definitely not a fan.