Forest Fires and a TAT time out

[Charley]

Since August 1 I have been wandering America along the TAT route. My only real goal is to finish the TAT in Port Orford, Oregon by the end of September.
As I have been exploring in states I have never been, visiting things of interest whether planned or by happenstance, it has been a great adventure, until this evening.

With about 400 miles to go, I called a time out here in Prineville, Oregon to figure out how to best avoid the smoke. After a beautiful night (and a bit chilly) in the Malheur National Forest last night (Thursday, Sept 10), I dared not do a smoke filled camp night tonight. And I am becoming very attached to these amazing lands, mountains, and forests.

Tomorrow I will probably head North or East for some days of adventure.
I will be back, as the tracks run through Prineville.
The image shows the TAT tracks through the Current Wildfires overlay in GAIA

My heart and prayers to all affected by, and all those fighting the wild fires out here.

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[Whiskeybilt]

Never heard of TAT. That's pretty cool.

 

[Pinepig]

It's shitty all up and down the west coast right now. Sick of the smoke and now they have closed ALL of our national forests so we can't even get up in the high country to get away from it.

Hope they get this sorted soon so you can continue on and actually see what you are passing by.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

It's shitty all up and down the west coast right now. Sick of the smoke and now they have closed ALL of our national forests so we can't even get up in the high country to get away from it.

Hope they get this sorted soon so you can continue on and actually see what you are passing by.

Hi Charlie,

We are about 500 miles or more away and our Green Valley is smoke filled from the left coast fires. Ruining our view of the Santa Ritas.

Here was our contribution via a gender reveal gone wrong on our Santa Ritas... Taken from my patio...

 

[Big Blue]

Hi Charlie,

We are about 500 miles or more away and our Green Valley is smoke filled from the left coast fires. Ruining our view of the Santa Ritas.

Here was our contribution via a gender reveal gone wrong on our Santa Ritas... Taken from my patio...

Really sad to see what used to be an occasional thing turn into what amounts to an annual fire season for you guys. My daughter lives in San Diego and even she has been affected, thankfully only mildly.

 

[Pinepig]

Really sad to see what used to be an occasional thing turn into what amounts to an annual fire season for you guys. My daughter lives in San Diego and even she has been affected, thankfully only mildly.

We've had an annual fire season as long as I've been alive ( mid 50s ) and before my time much more burned yearly.

 

[Big Blue]

Not going to get into a debate over what is essentially my personal observation.

But, is your chart a national acreage or primarily a west coast region? The rapid decline in the 30s and 40s could be explain but improvements in the ability to fight and contain fires. There does appear to be a significant increase since the turn of the century. A more telling statistic would be number of fires by region rather than just total acreage burned.

Again just my personal opinion.

 

[THLONE]

Fires are Mother natures way of getting rid of dead wood. Lot of that in Kalifornia. We just need a fence on the Colorado. Or better yet if the left coast fell in the ocean. ?

 

[Pinepig]

Not going to get into a debate over what is essentially my personal observation.

But, is your chart a national acreage or primarily a west coast region? The rapid decline in the 30s and 40s could be explain but improvements in the ability to fight and contain fires. There does appear to be a significant increase since the turn of the century. A more telling statistic would be number of fires by region rather than just total acreage burned.

Again just my personal opinion.

It's a national chart, Smokey the bear was invented in 1944 at that time they chose to fight every fire as hard as possible as policy. To put it simply this is the reason why we have such devastating fires today as nothing was allowed to burn to clean up the undergrowth, now there is so much any fire is almost guaranteed to run into the crowns. The fire ladder is more like a fire step stool now.

The fire season is nothing new on the west coast, it's been happening for thousands of years. We have several species of tree here like the Giant Sequoia which CAN NOT germinate without fire.

There is a reason I have my user name.

 

[NvrFinished]

There is much debate here in California over the increase in forest fires. While some are claiming it is due to man made climate change, naturally , the predominant reasons have to do more with the way fires have been fought the last 50 years, forest management, and lately, the extreme focus on green energy that has forced energy companies to spend money on that and not on clearing brush under power lines, updating power lines, and maintaining the roads to them.

In other words, forest fires are not allowed to burn, controlled burns are rarely performed like they used to, and brush fires are more common due to outdated power lines that spark and fall into the brush below them on windy days.

 

[Big Blue]

Well if nothing else my comment stared an interesting conversation.

 

[RedlandRanger]

These fires are nothing to laugh at. We had to evacuate our house this week. We are back now, but technically still in level 3 evacuation zone. I'm keeping a close eye on the fires, but the recent cooler, damper weather and having the winds die down has calmed them down significantly. We have everything packed and ready to go if things change.

There are 3 huge fires in the valley here - 2 have combined and it is almost a certainty the 3rd will combine with the other two as well. To date, these three fires have burned more than 450,000 acres of forest. One of the fires traveled 17 miles up a river valley overnight due to the winds - that in itself is terrifying I think. They had to pull firefighters off the line at one point because it was too dangerous for them. They are not able to use aircraft at this point due to all the smoke, so it is all on the ground. It is a huge mess.....

We haven't seen the sun for several days now due to all the smoke - if you go outside, you get a sratchy throat - it smells like a campfire everywhere, and ash is falling all over everything.

We had a series of fires back in the 30's and 40's called the "Tillamook burn" - every 6 years the same general spot burned - it burned about 350,000 acres and was the worst burn in the state's history I believe. This is going to eclipse that.

If anyone is anywhere near here, I'd recommend giving any of these fires a VERY wide berth.

 

[Pinepig]

These fires are nothing to laugh at. We had to evacuate our house this week. We are back now, but technically still in level 3 evacuation zone. I'm keeping a close eye on the fires, but the recent cooler, damper weather and having the winds die down has calmed them down significantly. We have everything packed and ready to go if things change.

There are 3 huge fires in the valley here - 2 have combined and it is almost a certainty the 3rd will combine with the other two as well. To date, these three fires have burned more than 450,000 acres of forest. One of the fires traveled 17 miles up a river valley overnight due to the winds - that in itself is terrifying I think. They had to pull firefighters off the line at one point because it was too dangerous for them. They are not able to use aircraft at this point due to all the smoke, so it is all on the ground. It is a huge mess.....

We haven't seen the sun for several days now due to all the smoke - if you go outside, you get a sratchy throat - it smells like a campfire everywhere, and ash is falling all over everything.

We had a series of fires back in the 30's and 40's called the "Tillamook burn" - every 6 years the same general spot burned - it burned about 350,000 acres and was the worst burn in the state's history I believe. This is going to eclipse that.

If anyone is anywhere near here, I'd recommend giving any of these fires a VERY wide berth.

Glad you still have your house, have two friends that lost everything down here. Hoping that rain shows up for you guys this next couple of days.

 

[RedlandRanger]

Glad you still have your house, have two friends that lost everything down here. Hoping that rain shows up for you guys this next couple of days.

We are on the edge of the evac zone - there are a LOT of people much closer to harms way. I talked to a guy who lost his house and was helping his parents bug out.

Rain is supposed to come Monday - as long as the winds stay calm and the temps stay low and the humidity stays high things should take a turn for the better. The winds were the big reason these fires exploded.

 

[Tracy Bowman]

These fires are nothing to laugh at. We had to evacuate our house this week. We are back now, but technically still in level 3 evacuation zone. I'm keeping a close eye on the fires, but the recent cooler, damper weather and having the winds die down has calmed them down significantly. We have everything packed and ready to go if things change.

There are 3 huge fires in the valley here - 2 have combined and it is almost a certainty the 3rd will combine with the other two as well. To date, these three fires have burned more than 450,000 acres of forest. One of the fires traveled 17 miles up a river valley overnight due to the winds - that in itself is terrifying I think. They had to pull firefighters off the line at one point because it was too dangerous for them. They are not able to use aircraft at this point due to all the smoke, so it is all on the ground. It is a huge mess.....

We haven't seen the sun for several days now due to all the smoke - if you go outside, you get a sratchy throat - it smells like a campfire everywhere, and ash is falling all over everything.

We had a series of fires back in the 30's and 40's called the "Tillamook burn" - every 6 years the same general spot burned - it burned about 350,000 acres and was the worst burn in the state's history I believe. This is going to eclipse that.

If anyone is anywhere near here, I'd recommend giving any of these fires a VERY wide berth.

Praying you & yours stay safe & also everyone in its path.

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