First hand wildfire report.

[oldfisherman]

I just returned from a two week adventure in Idaho wildfire country. Reason, I have a remote “caveman” retreat that is in an area that was under a level two evacuation for almost a full week.

The short report is, my place is OK, no damage. However, this is the rest of the unreported story.

While I was there, high winds again hit the 20 mile long wildfire that was only a few miles from my place. Neighbors were Scared, with a capital S. Everyone with homes there know several neighbors that had already lost their homes to the fire. The tension was nothing short of a helpless feeling of waiting for an invading army of berserkers to decide to let your home live or die.

We all heard about the 3 firefighters that died fighting a WA wildfire, RIP. But there were many close calls that have not been reported. Not far from my place, two firefighters were caught in front of a fast moving fire being pushed by sudden high winds. They managed to barely out run the fire to a decent size creek. They swam down creek; the next safe place to leave the creek was two miles from where they started their swim. There was fire on both sides of the steep canyon most of the swim. They lost all of their gear, but saved their lives. The same shifting high winds caused one of the nearby firefighting base camps to be evacuated.

The good work the firefighters are doing to save property can not be properly expressed. There were firefighters from Canada, Australia and Alaska helping the local firefighters and Idaho State National guardsmen. They have done a magnificent job. When it was safe, I toured the burned out area nearest my mountain home. I can not believe some of the homes the firefighters saved. However, only the homes lost are being reported. Many of the homes that were saved had some damage. Melted vinyl windows is being reported a lot, but they somehow saved the homes.

There are still many fires burning, but most are in very remote areas with no homes to worry about. The worst is over, thanks in large part to several days of rain from mother nature.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

picture = 1000 words

 

[oldfisherman]

picture = 1000 words

You are correct. I had a camera with me the entire time, and planned to take a lot of pictures.

However, I never took one picture. Somehow, it did not seem right to take pictures of the misfortune of others.

I changed my mind after getting involved with the emotions of the locals, and heard countless stories from a friend/neighbor that is in the sheriffs dept. Supporting and helping them anyway I could was the right thing to do, not take pictures. Unless you where there to experience it, it is hard to describe how stressful this fire season was on the local homeowners.

 

[riverman]

I just returned from a two week adventure in Idaho wildfire country. Reason, I have a remote “caveman” retreat that is in an area that was under a level two evacuation for almost a full week.

The short report is, my place is OK, no damage. However, this is the rest of the unreported story.

While I was there, high winds again hit the 20 mile long wildfire that was only a few miles from my place. Neighbors were Scared, with a capital S. Everyone with homes there know several neighbors that had already lost their homes to the fire. The tension was nothing short of a helpless feeling of waiting for an invading army of berserkers to decide to let your home live or die.

We all heard about the 3 firefighters that died fighting a WA wildfire, RIP. But there were many close calls that have not been reported. Not far from my place, two firefighters were caught in front of a fast moving fire being pushed by sudden high winds. They managed to barely out run the fire to a decent size creek. They swam down creek; the next safe place to leave the creek was two miles from where they started their swim. There was fire on both sides of the steep canyon most of the swim. They lost all of their gear, but saved their lives. The same shifting high winds caused one of the nearby firefighting base camps to be evacuated.

The good work the firefighters are doing to save property can not be properly expressed. There were firefighters from Canada, Australia and Alaska helping the local firefighters and Idaho State National guardsmen. They have done a magnificent job. When it was safe, I toured the burned out area nearest my mountain home. I can not believe some of the homes the firefighters saved. However, only the homes lost are being reported. Many of the homes that were saved had some damage. Melted vinyl window is being reported a lot, but they somehow saved the homes.

There are still many fires burning, but most are in very remote areas with no homes to worry about. The worst is over, thanks in large part to several days of rain from mother nature.

Best wishes for your place and all the locals there. Firefighters are awesome. Several blocks burned in a neighborhood when I was doing a 12 houre shift caring for a paralyzed man, it came right to his fence line. Firefighters saved me from physically carrying this man away from his house. I thanked everyone I could see after they put it out and protected the area.

 

[Further]

I'm living out in Walla Walla and the wildfires have been terrible out this way this season. About a month ago, 7.5 miles outside of town we had a raging fire, took homes, farms, vineyards, and it was very hard to get under control. The fire actually became the #1 fire priority in America because at one point the fire was very close to overtaking our watershed and would have meant undrinkable water for Walla Walla and surrounding areas for a long time. My school, WWCC, was host to all the traveling firefighters who came to help out with the emergency. hundreds of tents were pitched all over campus as well as staging areas, mess tents, medic and first aid stations, and the mechanics were nonstop working on the trucks and equipment. The firefighters managed to finally get the fire under control, and saved the watershed and keep the vast majority of at risk homes and farms safe from the fire.

The one part of the ordeal that was really cool to watch was one day towards the end of the situation I was driving out towards the fire to see if we could see what happened from a ridge over. I drove around a corner and boom, right in front of me, perhaps a hundred feet forward was a helicopter with one of those huge water buckets filling up from the ground and lifting up to dump on the fire. But the part that surprised me was they had inflated an above ground swimming pool to use for refilling the bucket. From a nearby stream, water was being pumped into the pool. It was a pretty awesome site.

Then about two weeks ago, there were a bunch of smaller fires all around the outskirts of Walla Walla, and unlike the really bad fire that had wind blowing the smoke away from downtown, with the smaller fires the smoke got so thick in town that I had to frequently use my asthma inhalers and all my clothing smelled like I had been camping and spending the evenings around a campfire.

But, overall the fires were very well managed and the firefighters really saved our butts from some potentially horrible outcomes.