Tag Archives: wildfire

Road Trip to Washington – Day 1

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Our deadlines of the summer were over. We finished (almost) our kitchen renovation. The house was clean (at least the part we had been working on). I had delivered sheep to the butcher and had people lined up for chores. I set up the pasture fences to make managing the ewes as easy as possible. I even made a barricade so that the ewes wouldn’t be near the rams because I didn’t want to risk the rams bashing the fence and each other.

We packed as if we were going on safari. We hadn’t been out of shorts and t-shirts for months and now we were going to the North where it is said to be Cold and Wet. Better grab another pair of pants, another sweatshirt, rain-pants. Oh, you’re bringing two pillows? Then I’ll bring two pillows…and a yoga mat and my sheepskin for under my sleeping bag.

We got away on Tuesday, September 11 at 10 a.m., only about an hour behind schedule. IMG_9620Here we go!DSC_3536All of these photos are “drive-by”, taken with my camera or my phone while in a moving car. They are hazy and the sky is ugly. But that’s how it looked as we drove up the valley. We have been living for most of the summer with smoke-filled skies. Now we were smelling smoke too. This is Shasta Lake and it is evident how low the water level is. A reservoir can be an ugly place when the water is low (in my opinion).DSC_3540 We began to see signs of the Carr Fire which had caused the closure of I-5 in both directions for 5 or 6 days just the week before we left.DSC_3534One of my son’s manages a USFS helicopter and his crew was on this fire, but that wasn’t the his helicopter. DSC_3541The fire had burned right up to the road and had actually burned vehicles that couldn’t get away in time. DSC_3545IMG_9622

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IMG_9626 Trees that are near the highway are being removed for miles.IMG_9625And it’s not over yet!DSC_3550There were active smokes along several miles. IMG_9630My two sons and a daughter-in-law all fight wildland forest fires. This is a scary year.DSC_3553As we drove further north the skies cleared and the forest again hugged the sides of the freeway.DSC_3554This isn’t a great photo, but I am usually driving when I see this dragon.There is a metal cow and calf a few miles back that  missed. But I got at least one photo of the dragon.DSC_3556Heading to the Shasta Valley in northern California.IMG_9631Somewhere in Oregon. It seems like a long time since we’ve had rain here.

It was dusk as we got to our destination for the night in northern Oregon. More about that in the next post.

 

Moving on

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Major disappointment for our family last weekend. And ours was only one family’s story about the impact of the King Fire in northern California. Recent rain has helped the 7000+ people who were assigned to this fire to finally gain the upper hand. Over 7000 firefighters and other personnel, almost 100,000 acres. When there were “only” 4000 people assigned to the fire the news reported the cost of $5 million/day. Fortunately there were relatively few homes lost compared to other recent fires (but if you were one of those few its obviously a major impact), but the destruction to the forest, the wildlife, and the impact on thousands of peoples’ lives is impossible to quantify.

I realize that natural disasters happen all over the world and the impacts are far worse than what happened here, but nevertheless this is the one that is right in our faces with a direct affect. And this one was not NATURAL. There was an ARSONIST. I can’t even express my anger and frustration over that.

My son and DIL both live just south of this fire and fortunately the initial work by the fire crews prevented the fire from burning south where potentially hundreds of homes, including theirs, could have been burned. They both worked this fire (son on the fire line and DIL in dispatch) and while they were doing that my other son and the rest of the family headed to Lake Tahoe for the Tahoe Ironman.

I took lots of photos but as the outcome of the weekend was not as hoped I’ll show only three.DSC_8057 Saturday the air was clear at Lake Tahoe and we dropped off bikes and bags at the transition areas.  Our Ironmen are Chris, on the right, and Rob, his uncle, second from the left. This was only part of the support crew as the other family members came later than day. DSC_8099 We left at 4:30 a.m. so we could park and get our competitors to the where they needed to be on Sunday morning. Here we are about 15 minutes before the start. The event was cancelled (or at least the public was told about it) at the absolute last minute as the first wave of contenders were entering the water. photoThe bike/run portion of the race was to take place in the Squaw Valley/Truckee area. This is a view of Squaw Valley as we picked bags up later in the day. Although there had been some rain, that is not mist hiding the mountains. It is smoke.

Major disappointment for everyone at the event. Frustration. Tears. Anger.  There is no arguing about the fact that conditions were not safe for an elite (or any) athletic event, but that doesn’t help with the frustration of everyone involved….This is only one event. I can only imagine all the ripple effects of this incident caused by ONE PERSON. It seems tame to call him selfish, but what else? Right now we don’t know anything about the reason behind the arson. But there is no good reason. DSC_8128 Daylight drive back home.

So now I will MOVE ON. Next post will be all smiles!