There's A Fire On The Mountain...This Time, It's Not Our Mountain

Because of social media, we can instantly be informed of events around the block or around the world. This afternoon news hit of a mountain fire located a few miles to the north of us. It's been a windy day and wind, hot weather, and tall weeds equals potential loss of property, or worse.

Believe me--I know what those people living near the fire are going through.

We lived it twice, once in 2003, and again ten years later in 2013.

The last couple of years the western United States have been on fire. Two summers ago we drove to Seattle to attend my nephew's wedding. Oregon was ablaze; Washington State was, too. Near Portland they closed the interstate. Fortunately, we turned off before the road was closed, but on the way home from the wedding, the smoke was so thick in some areas, it was difficult to see even a few hundred feet ahead.

This year (and maybe it's because I have been so busy and not paying attention to other stuff...) it feels like it hasn't been a bad fire season. Until recently, that is. In the space of a couple of weeks, there's been several fires close to where we live. Luckily for us, we've not had one hit above our home since 2013.

Because I was blogging in 2013, I blogged about that and posted several pictures of the event. You can access that particular blog post by clicking: HERE. Having a fire so close to home is both terrifying and amazing. Everything--everything--smells like smoke. Even your clothes inside the house smells like smoke days later, but at night, the scene is so surreal watching the mountain burn. The 2013 fire was nowhere near as big as the 2003 fire. That one was huge. Thankfully, no homes were lost in either one.

Like anything, living on the side of a hill comes with positives and negatives. Sure, the views are incredible, but mountainside fires usually don't threaten valley homes and then there's the potential for mudslides caused by the burned vegetation. Pros and cons in everything.

I don't know the status of the latest blaze as I write this. The wind died down in this afternoon and it looked like it might rain, but then the wind picked up again so it could be much much worse than it was earlier. The forecast calls for rain tomorrow. We're all praying it's right. No, mountain fires are something no one wants, but when they happen, we deal with them and the aftermath. I guess it's just part of life.

This time, it happened a few miles north. A couple of weeks ago, the fire was a few miles to the south. I wonder if in 2023 we'll have another one on our mountain. I sure hope not.

Fire On The Mountain..Thanks To The Heroes!

It's been a crazy 24 hours.

Around 8:45pm I was driving home with my son and as I pulled up to our house, I glanced at the hill and saw a small circle of fire. My first thought? Crap! It was going to be a long night.

Ten years ago last month we had another fire. A guy wanting to go back to prison lit the mountain on fire. We were a week out from moving into the house we'd spent the last nine months building and several years planning. Luckily, no homes were damaged in that fire. When I saw the small ring of flames yesterday, that's all I could think about--that's all anyone could think about who lived in our town a decade ago.

That fire began around noon on one of the hottest days of the year. This fire (caused by people target shooting...) began at night, and even though we had record-breaking temperatures lately, night was coming on and the fire did not explode like last time.

Of course, the curious came up to our street. People came from all over and parked on our cul-de-sac and did what we all did...stood around and watched the flames devour grass, trees, anything burnable. 

I got out my camera and tried taking some long exposure shots. Some worked out; most were shaky. I then got out my tripod and the pictures improved. These are some of my favorites.

This morning it didn't look so bad. As cool as watching things burn last night was, today was very cool as well. Today came the helicopters and airplanes. 

By the afternoon the smoke trails had stopped and the firefighters were leaving the area. They stopped the flames from descending into where we live. They're heroes. Just like soldiers, it's something they do as a job to protect us. They fight the fight for us and I hope in some small way, they know that we're thankful for them. Here's to a fire-free night, thanks to them.