Thursday, September 10, 2020

Fire Update. I am OK

I am OK so far, but it is very bad for a lot of people.


I am fire-free and out of the evacuation zone, both at home and at the farm.  Other people I know have had their homes burn to the ground.


Context: It has not really rained for three months, and the past week has had days of 100+ degree temperatures and unusual winds blowing in multiple directions of 30 and 40 miles per hour.  Branches on trees are breaking. Fire danger is very high. Natural vegetation--i.e. unirrigated--is bone dry.

My situation could change in an instant. The fires are putting up embers that fly for miles and then come down in dry vegetation, get started, get whipped up by the wind, and then move to structures. A structure fire creates enough heat to move to the next structure downwind or uphill.


Wednesday: New fire broke out, skipping 4 miles to Central Point



There are major fires in the forested areas around Medford, and they burning up a valuable resource and filling the area with smoke.

The more consequential and heartbreaking damage is the wildfire in the urban and suburban area, burning along the natural area of the freeway and Greenway areas stretching from Ashland through the City of Talent, then the City of Phoenix, Oregon, then Medford, skipping up to Central Point. The fire in the natural areas sneaks into neighborhoods, especially crowded one, and especially mobile home subdivisions.

I know two people whose homes have burned to the ground. The candidate for County Commissioner I was going to hold a "virtual house party" for, Terrie Martin, had her own business--a Harley Davidson dealership--burn up the day of the event. One of the people who planed to participate, Allen Hallmark, lost his home that afternoon.

A person who was going to come to my house to continue a painting project wrote me a text this morning. It said. 

"Good morning. I was glad to see you did not get evacuated. My aunt and one cousin had to stay at our house, but their house was spared. My step brother and step sister each lost their homes and places of work.  I have been staying off the phone because of the high demand of calls. The fire out here at my home looks like it won't be a threat to us, as long as the wind is in our favor. We are in a state of disbelief."

A person helping me at the farm lives just outside the city limits of Phoenix, Oregon. His house and three others around it were spared but all the others in the neighborhood were burned to the ground. His house was, however, looted in the night. People broke in with a sledge hammer to the door, then spent several hours attempting, with torches and crowbars  to break into a gun safe he had at the house. They got in, found nothing, and then destroyed the walls looking for valuable objects that might have been hidden in the walls.

I am safe, but I live near the top of a hill. Some of the neighbors below me have "natural vegetation" which means scrub oak trees and dry grass. (My own home is landscaped and irrigated, a controversial choice. I use lots of water, but Medford has lots of water, and I wanted green things in my front yard below me as a fire break.) If a fire starts in homes with dry grass below me, I have 150 or so feet of separation. 

Farm: The homes that were formerly those of my grandparents and uncles are actually more endangered. The areas around them and the barns have equipment stored around them, which means some natural vegetation, now bone dry. Embers are falling, and if embers get started in dry grass it could easily move to the barns, which have both hay and equipment, and of course, there are the 90 year old homes themselves that could get started. It is the nature of farm homes to have gasoline and diesel stored In the area to run the equipment. 

Below are three photos.  The all are taken from the same angle, from my deck looking south. The first was of the fires burning up Talent and Phoenix by day. The second was the scene at night. The third was taken this morning. You can see nothing. The Valley is filled with smoke.



[Today's political blog follows. It is on the subject of Trump's comment to Bob Woodward.]







And here is a photo of a brand new forest fire, I happened upon. This is what one looks like from a distance of about a mile, when one cannot see the flames at the base of the fire. The fire was probably 50 acres in size then. It is several thousand acres now.





Photo from local media.  Note two things. One is the utter devastation of the places in the foreground, but look at the house just behind it. It appears to be untouched. Some people are lucky, some are not.




Added photo Thursday afternoon.  The fire skipped north from the south end of Medford to the north end.  Note the Freeway in the background.  The Freeway, Interstate 5, runs beside and sometimes directly over Bear Creek. The fire has travelled up the riparian area and then straying out to houses alongside it.








7 comments:

SummonZeus said...

Wow, time to fill up buckets and barrels with water. Good luck.

Rick Millward said...

Luck is right! If the wind had been blowing East the fire could have made the turn and into our neighborhoods. If it had, we would have had little time to react.

Instead we had a few hours of anxiety and a mostly sleepless night. We were on the edge of the evacuation zone, and so got ready just in case. It is an odd sensation to pack a suitcase with the knowledge that it may be all one has. The decisions about what to load into the car and what to abandon, along with knowing that everything in the house is possibly lost were heartbreaking. Yes, it's just material things and replaceable but nonetheless one does feel attachment to possessions, and while you can detach yourself objectively as you pack important papers and clothes you realize that despite how little they matter in the face of an inferno, you still mourn along with the panic.

I'd be curious to know how the response will be evaluated. It seems like the wildfire overwhelmed our resources and I wonder if this was inevitable. I suspect so. Medford dodged a bullet which makes me wonder about the next time.

I'm not unpacking until it rains.

Diane Newell Meyer said...

I wanted to post this on faceook, but it pulled up an image of trump on the cover of your blog, and I have a rule about not posting articles with trump's mug on my page!
I have almost 10 Facebook friends who have lost homes! Some were renters without any insurance. So sad, as indeed luck seems to play a part on who was spared. Ashland had been lucky with the wind direction, this time. But the bad air is back today.
It seems overwhelming what we have going on, the fires, the Corvid, the economy, the election and racial unrest. All at once! Anxiety levels are off the charts.

On the second part of your blog today, I worry that his base may be enough to get him back in office. Especially as the street riots and looting keep on. I go to their pages, and he has not lost many in that base, despite all. He is a cult leader with loyal followers.

Michael Trigoboff said...

Stay safe...

Sally said...

Thanks for the post and the perspective.

This is the only game in town right now, as far as I’m concerned. We had to evacuate also, and like Rick said, left not really expecting that we’d ever see anything again. Even so, I couldn’t even fill a relatively small suitcase. Too much shock and fear.

We too are staying packed, hopefully a better job of it.

Andy Seles said...

Rick...IF it rains. The Trumpists (my sister is one) blame the fires on tree-hugging environmentalists so they can ignore the issue of climate change/burning of fossil fuels...exuse me, "climate hoax." Meanwhile data suggests the logging industry had a hand in helping to create the tinderbox we are living in. Everyone's personal belief silo remains intact.
Peter...get that gas and diesel the hell out of those buildings and...yes, fire loves to climb hills, so stay vigilant.
Re. Trump commentary, we need to remember the systemic part of racism and what that means. What is there about the system that favors the lighter skin tone over "people of color" (ludicrous really as we all have different shades of melatonin)? What underlies the system? May I venture predatory capitalism which discovered it could drive a Jim Crow wedge between eonomically exploited whites and blacks back in the day by convincing poor whites that "at least they weren't black?" Since then racism has been an issue loved by both parties as a shiny object to avoid dealing with poverty and wealth disparity...but in calling it out I must obviously be a racist, a socialist or a commie.

Andy Seles

Ralph Bowman said...

I have gotten to the point that if I am talking to a Trump supporter I ask them if they are racist like him. This abruptly gets an answer like “ I like him because he is not a politician and tells it like it is.” I then drop the next question “ Do you believe in global warming?”. If I get that look away stare I say oh you don’t . Are you a flat earth person? This does not make friends, but I find being the go along get along liberal makes the Trump supporters believe everyone around them thinks like they do. In their face remarks puts them on the defensive which is where they want to put all liberals ... in the feckless nice reasonable position. Call the fascists out by direct questions...let them wiggle and dance if you don’t get a fist in your face. One Trump supporter told me she was glad those people in Lebanon got blown up. I said are you a racist?
She said no but she doesn’t like those people...you mean Arabs because they are Isis? She said yes. I then asked here if she knew where Lebanon is located and she said over there.

Trump people...I yi yi yi.