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.