Fire update

     The smoke is better. The mountain is almost always visible these days, though blurred with what we might call haze but is really smoke. I've been able to take walks on some days, not today because the smoke is a little thicker today, probably "unhealthy for sensitive groups." We have had some cool weather and a dab of rain two nights ago. 
    I have unpacked the car with its evacuation gear. As I unpacked, I made a list of every item so next time I won't have to think about what to take. I'll just throw things together according to the list and avoid the anxiety of decision making. 
    A few days ago the sky was so clear and blue (I was relieved to see it had not turned red while I couldn't see it) I put on my hiking boots and got in the car to go up Stein Butte, maybe, at the Applegate Lake, or the Charlie Buck trail to Baldy Peak on the other side of the Applegate. But once I went over the pass into the Carberry Creek drainage, the smoke thickened badly, and I knew I wouldn't be able to hike. When I reached the Applegate Lake, I saw that the road towards Stein Butte was closed, anyway, and the same thing was true for the road leading to the Charlie Buck trail. The best thing, then, would be to circle around to the Applegate valley and drive home, but when I got to the valley, I decided to make something of the trip and go into Jacksonville for a cup of coffee.    
    The air in Jacksonville was clear. The sky was its usual beautiful blue, so I parked the car and walked for two hours in the Jacksonville Woodlands.

There were lots of people walking the trails, glad to be outside, glad to be getting outdoor exercise, glad to be walking in the beautiful woodlands again. Everyone was in the best of moods.

    The Slater and Devil fires are still burning, but they are burning low and slow and are no longer threatening my house. The air is still smoky but not oppressive and no longer in the hazardous zone, as it was for so many days. Williams, Oregon, eight miles down the road, no longer has the worst air quality in the world and, in fact, doesn't even show up any more on the AQI index as one of the ten worst cities in the country. I'm sorry for those ten California cities on the list. I hope they, too, will wake up one day soon under a smokeless blue sky. 

Where There's Fire There's Smoke

(Before beginning this post, I want to express how heartbroken I am for all the people in Oregon who have lost their homes because of the fires. My heart is especially heavy for those who live in Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, and Medford, and for all the businesses that have suffered loss as well.)

    In the pall of smoke descending on my house from the Slater and Devil's fires, burning only a few miles away, I have lost track of the days. Did the fires start a week ago? More? How long have I been ensconced here on the mountain, imprisoned by the hazardous air outside? How long has it been since I have seen the sky or known any weather? Has it been hot? Have clouds been gathering? I hear it might rain in the next few days, though you couldn't tell by looking out the window. 

I used to see a mountain outside my window. That's smoke, not clouds.

    Actually, the smoke is better today. Twice there was a reddish spotlight glare, which I assume was the sun, not flames. Today I can see the trees beyond the garden, though Humpy Mountain, of course, is completely obscured.  You would never know I had a mountain view. 

    The smoke is bad everywhere in Oregon because the fires have been bad everywhere, but Williams, eight miles down the mountain, has had the worst air in the state, according to AQI levels. In fact, it has been the worst air in the country, if I'm reading the chart right. Is it worse up here on the mountain? Or better?

    When I first learned of the fire, my neighbors told me they were packing their cars in case of evacuation and putting sprinklers on their roofs. That was scary! I don't have the capacity for putting sprinklers on my roof. I felt alone, isolated, and very much at the end of the road. Maybe the fire chief who came knocking on doors wouldn't know I was here. Maybe I would miss the evacuation notice. Maybe I should pack my car for evacuation. But with what? What are "important papers"? When I looked around the house, nothing seemed important, really, except my computer, or else everything seemed important. What would I take? I was worried, confused, directionless. When a friend told me she would be feeling the same way except that her son was visiting and could function as her brain, I realized that what I needed was a brain. 

    I called my son.

    It was like a breath of fresh air. Ela gave me sensible directions for evacuation and told me that, if I did have to leave, I should go straight to his house, on Vashon Island in Washington. 

    Now I felt directed and could move into action. Following Ela's advice, I made a list of priorities of things to take. To my surprise, I easily found my important papers (deed to the house, will, marriage certificate, etc., though I guess the marriage certificate is only important sentimentally now). I packed a bag of clothes and my camping gear. I made clear decisions about what was irreplaceable (computer; phone; shoes, including hiking boots and ski boots, because my feet are so hard to fit, and if I took the boots, I might as well take the skis, too, so they went into the "irreplaceable" pile; cords and chargers for the computer and phone). I packed a suitcase with clothes. Then I thought about what I would want if my house burned and I had to start all over again, and I took some things people had made for me, including a stained-glass gift from Mike. I took a few photos I had hanging on the wall. I put everything in the car. If I have to evacuate, I am ready.

    Then I put on my N94 mask and raked dry leaves away from the house and the woodshed and swept the deck clean. If the fire does come here and it's a ground fire, there's a good chance my house will survive. If it's not a ground fire, it's lost, anyway. 

    I found that all that preparation helped me be psychologically ready, too. I can't remain in perpetual anxiety about danger I can't do anything about, so, except that I stay indoors, I follow normal life. Because I don't have an air filter in the house, I avoid strenuous exercise even indoors. My hiking muscles are atrophying. Political news, coronavirus news, family news from the east coast—it all seems like another world. In this tunnel of smoke, I sit in my house, read daily updates on the fire, and wait, hoping I won't be joining the crowds of fire refugees all over Oregon.

Fire

        A few days ago I received a text alert: "Extreme Fire Risk Alert. Gusty winds through Wednesday afternoon with dry conditions."

        And indeed.

        The Almeda fire struck at the north end of Ashland on Wednesday morning, and, without dawdling or wondering what to do, it roared into action down Highway 199 and I-5, into Talent and through it, into Phoenix and through it, and on to the south end of Medford. It jumped into a trailer park here, a business building there, a block of homes in another place, licking up whatever looked good to eat, then turning its back on other possibilities on the same block and continuing its destructive path north, leaving behind a 13-mile swath of calamity. 

        I haven't been there to see it. I'm staying away so as not to exacerbate traffic, but I know that when I do drive into town, I won't be prepared for what I'll see. There is no way to prepare myself for the emotional impact of seeing places I love leveled by fire. I've seen the pictures online and I've heard people talk about what they've seen, but I dread seeing it for myself. I have lived here for almost half a century. These are my towns, places where I shop, places where friends live, sights I am familiar with, places I love. I am heartsick, and I haven't even seen, yet, what the fire could do.

        In Europe, the fourteenth century was called the calamitous century. That's how I see the summer of 2020 in the Rogue Valley. First the coronavirus pandemic hit, causing people to curtail social engagements and businesses to shut down, some of them, no doubt, permanently. Then the fires came, destroying businesses, homes, and ordinary life, such as it had become during the coronavirus. How many businesses will recover? What will life be like, for those who lost homes in the fire and for all the rest of us, who were also affected, though less directly?

        Am I safe in my house on the mountain? Of course not. None of us in southern Oregon is safe from wildfire, as the Almeda fire has proven. There is no fire threatening my property at the moment. The Slater fire is not far enough away for my comfort, but all I can do is watch the reports, stay in touch with neighbors, and be ready for the next step, if it comes. 

Destruction by Fire

by Diana Coogle

When fire erupts, it seethes, then leaps and dives,

Or sprouting from a tiny spark, it blooms

Into a monstrous Frankensteinic ‘shroom.

Wind, its accomplice, pushes, whirls, and drives.

Tongues of flame cut buildings down like knives,

Lick the inside of cars as clean as tombs,

Enter doors and roofs to slurp up rooms.

Fire that’s red-hot happy to be alive.

 

When pestilence crept in with stealthy feet

To crush with cold disdain and still the street,

We turned our homes into safe sanctuary. 

But now we know: if pestilence is scary

So is fire—and earthquake, famine, war.

God’s bosom’s bare. No place is safe anymore.

    

    

Pipe Fork Creek

    I have lived here, on this piece of land in the mountains above the Applegate River of southern Oregon, since 1974. My property is nestled among blocks of land owned or managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the National Forest Service, and Josephine County. An old mining ditch runs from Pipe Fork Creek to my property and straight through it.     

    The ditch trail to Pipe Fork became a favorite walk almost as soon as I got here, and then on up the creek, walking on the steep banks or in the creek itself when the banks were too steep or further access was blocked by downed trees or thick vegetation. 

I found small waterfalls tumbling into pools or sliding over long, slick rocks. I found the Siskiyou salamander and fish in the pools. I found a bigger waterfall, where water fell over the lip of a rock eight feet above the pool. I could submerge in the cool, forest-shaded water of the pool. The waterfall splashed into it with therapeutic music.

    I knew at once how special a place this was. There was no other such waterfall that I knew of in this area.

    For years few people, if any, seemed to know about the ditch, the upper sections of the creek, and the waterfall. I sometimes took visitors there, but the waterfall was difficult to get to, so they had to be hearty folks. The last time I was at the waterfall, earlier this summer, I was with my son, who, because he had grown up here, remembered well the creek, the difficult access, and the waterfall itself. He remembered fishing on the creek, the waterslide falls, the mosses and ferns, the giant cedars and pines, the steep canyon walls.

    I have seen fishers scampering around a tree in these woods. I have seen a cougar walk her majestic pace in these woods. I have seen bears run from me up the hills as I approached on a trail, and I have seen a ringtail cat, at my house, in these same woods. I hear the call of a barred owl almost nightly, sometimes close, in the woods just above my house, sometimes far away, as though at Pipe Fork itself. I know the skinks and skunks, the salamanders and lizards that scurry under rotten logs. I know the moist and rampant beauty of Pipe Fork.

    Five years ago Josephine County cut some timber along Pipe Fork, some beautiful tall trees along the old logging road that winds up the mountains above the Pipe Fork canyon. That was bad enough, but now the county wants to clearcut 140 acres in the Pipe Fork drainage, right on the banks, the steep canyon banks, of the creek. 

    I cannot bear this. I talk about Pipe Fork in personal terms because I have lived so long in its ecology, so of course, I don't want to see it logged, but Pipe Fork is now recognized by others, too, as a gem, a rare treasure of Williams, an ecological niche important for the purity of its water that feeds the Williams watershed, the variety of its flora, the health of its fauna, and the big trees still standing that keep the canyon full of water.  Even more important is to pull our vision to a greater height, from which we can see the 140 acres of Pipe Fork the county wants to clearcut as an ecology we can no longer squander, a tiny part of a larger whole that is being fragmented too fast, a part of the larger environment of nature of which we are a part. We do not live on this earth, in our personal habitats, alone. Thomas Berry, in The Dream of the Earth, says, "Any progress of the human at the expense of the larger life community must ultimately lead to a diminishment of human life itself. A degraded habitat will produce degraded humans. An enhanced habitat supports an elevated mode of the human." 

    This is no time in our nation's history to be clearcutting a forest, degrading a habitat. We need everything we can find and keep to support an elevated mode of the human, which is so much under fire these days. For my sake and for the sake of human life itself, it is my fervent hope that there will be a way to prevent the degradation of the larger life community of Pipe Fork.

(All photos by Kevin Peer)