Tag: Wildfire

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Smokey Days

 

Wildfires are burning all around us. This week instead of subjecting you to another appliance upgrade ‘update’, we’re just going to leave a picture of this morning’s sunrise on the AM walk. Yeah, it’s kind of smokey.

There are 600 acres burning on the eastern edge of La Pine, 4 houses were lost and a bunch of outbuildings. That blaze has a fireline around it. However, there are 6 thousand acres burning east of Sisters that still threatens homes up there. To the southeast of us is currently the largest wildfire in the western US. The Bootleg Fire is burning 220 thousand acres and remains very active.

A heat dome and the wildfires have kept us pretty much at home. Hope you’re doing better than us … though as the winds shift you don’t need to be close to a fire to still get covered with smoke.

This is an interesting web site to track not just fire activity but the smoke cover. We’ve seen a shift from good to poor air quality as the winds moved more westerly this last evening.

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Finding Feathers

Clean up of the Holiday Farm Fire includes felling thousands of trees and stabilizing hillsides. Some areas are little more than ash and rubble.

This week we drove through a wildfire, or rather the aftermath of one of the many forest fires that burned Oregon last summer. 2020 was the most destructive fire season on record in the state.

Highway 126 winds along the McKenzie River

On this day we followed Highway 126 along the Mckenzie River and drove through the middle of the Holiday Farm Fire.

This blaze started on the sixth of September and when it was finally contained. 65 days later, it had burned 175 thousand acres, destroyed 760 structures and killed one person.

The magnitude of this, or any wildfire, is not completely captured by news accounts. Even video reports don’t give you a prospective on how much 175,000 acres burned is really, nor how arbitrary the destruction.

There were plots of ground leveled to bare foundation sitting next to houses untouched by fire. This went on for miles as we drove past the ongoing clean up efforts.

Eight months later they are still clearing debris and felling damaged trees as they attempt a return to regular life. However, there are also a lot of people getting out and lots of properties are ‘on the market’.

We were on this road heading west to Eugene to locate flytying supplies. I’ll admit that tying the flies used in fishing may not be a money saving prospect. Hobbies are rarely a path to frugal endeavors. This house is engaged in a number of hobbies that require regular re-supply and flyfishing is just one of them.

A mix of Hen necks dry fly hackles

The pandemic has moved the acquisition of materials to online sources but there are also some issues with that. The major issue for a flytyer is some of the bits attached to hooks need a color match.

While there is no shortage of online sources for these materials this isn’t the best method for choosing the “proper” item. I find it necessary, particularly with feathers, to make these choices in person.

The pandemic also exacerbated the supply chain. It’s kind of important to support local fly shops but this supply chain issue has greatly reduced materials at our local shops. In the case of hackle feathers the choice is none. So the answer to this dilemma is a road trip to one of Oregon’s great supply centers The Caddis Fly Shop in Eugene. This place had a wall of hackle choices and of course a number of other essential items. then back on the road and home but this time via Willamette pass Highway 58.

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Nothing typical about this week

This week has been interesting to say the least.

For the last six months we’ve been observing pandemic guidelines. Now to be honest, I rather like the whole social distancing part. It’s nice not having someone crowd you at the checkout, so waiting 6 feet away is actually preferable.

But then,  just after Labor Day came the  wildfires. Oregon was hit with a series of blazes on the west side of the Cascades. Large fires, unlike anything that side of the state has seen.

 

The result … air quality at hazardous levels.

For the past week, or more, we’ve been inside, unable to spend any time outdoors. There have been small breaks with the worst of the smoke coming late afternoon and evening.

An eerie haze hangs over the landscape. Face covers, mandatory for interior travel, are now necessary outside as well.

Just taking Tip for a walk brings tears to our eyes.

Friday finally brought a shift in the weather. It rained for the first time in weeks. Wind direction shifted and moved dense smoke out of the Willamette Valley and into Central Oregon. Hopefully it will keep moving east and while the fires still burn the really bad smoke / air quality is on the way out.

In the meantime, we are getting caught up on reading, cleaning and home organizing projects.