The fire continues to burn - slow, steady. Its been 22 days so far. The fire has reached the Rogue River in the Hellgate area, so its put a huge crimp on the tourism industry in our community of Grants Pass.
They've allowed some of the Level 3 folks back in to their neighborhood due to the fire being OUT. No structures have been lost in this 22 day fire. The ppl returning to their home found their homes looted. Why oh Why? The National Guard was called in two weeks ago to set up road blocks for the streets that were on Level 3. This means that you needed to have an ID in order to return to the streets affected. Sadly, some of the neighborhood, rural you understand, was hit or miss in the populations. Yes, there were some shady properties with appropriately shady characters. The ID would get them into the neighborhoods, where this pond scum looted. broke windows, cased the joint, caused random havoc within the home, all under the auspices of the NG who let them in. Remember, the NG is not protecting individual homes. They are there to stop the flow of lookie loos and the unauthorized from getting into the area. I have no idea if they are armed.
Being staged and ready at level 1 and then even more so at Level 2 gives you an oppty to get some things out of your home. Those folks who were smart, had friends to help them load up cars, trucks, flat bed trailers, etc with precious antiques, or other important large items that were moveable. Fire safes, gun safes, your grandmother's china, your kids paper drawings, maybe an antique piano. There was time to accomplish these tasks. You can rent a UHaul and then bite the financial bullet to rent it for the entire time you needed it, while it was parked at a friend's home. Be sure its all chained down though, or the locals will vandalize it. Note, that the Carr Fire in Redding never had very many "Levels". It was a fire storm. Raged, twirled, ran and overcame 100's of homes. Same with the fire last fall in Wine Country - It leveled homes within two days. They were lucky to flee with their lives. And some didn't make it.
Our plan was to have the 33 ft 5th wheel ready to back out of our property. Its always loaded for camping, and if I had gotten to a Level 1, I'd of packed it even more tightly. Food, linens, animal food, and more. Our 24' Cargo Mate trailer is also staged for backing down the driveway. Its got some furniture in it that won't fit in this house, and while reorganizing it last week, I gave some, non essential to me anymore, things away and took some larger items to the thrift store. Urgency is a terrific motivator. I'm the backer upper in this partnership (28 years last weekend) and I was ready to roll. The 5th wheel was going to be moved to our Realtor's large 7 acre property about 6 miles due east. The Cargo Mate would also go there. Just to park them.
You may wonder...what about renting a storage unit? Of the storage units that are located in our communities, all are 100% full. And that was before the fire threat! That is a nod towards the amount of possessions that the collective we own and feel the need to hang onto. Let see, I have a house, and my excess must be stored at a cost per month in order for me to hang onto my 'stuff'.
For 5 days, hubs and a $20 an hour helper friend, lifted trees (trimmed lower branches), raked up 2.6 acres of our property, cleaned gutters and blew off roofs. They piled two HUGE brush piles way out front of our property, as far away as they could get from our regal old oak trees. We can't move those piles, but they can stay until the winter comes and we can burn them. Hubs got the two trailers in place on the driveway. Old lumber and old debris was taken to the transfer station - several loads on the friend's flat bed trailer. Wood debris is free to dump, but anything else costs money
In the meantime, the smoke continues. The Rogue Valley, in two parts, is truly a valley. There are deep pockets surrounded by tall mountains (not Colorado tall) which really does a good job keeping the smoke intact in our lives. It was so bad two weeks ago, that any one sensitive to respiratory issues was advised to use an N95 mask. We've had one clear day. Last Friday wind came up and blew from east to west, so it pushed the smoke out over the mountain to the coast. An inversion came back in and we're back to smoke. I usually hang my laundry out to dry year round (saves money), but I've had to have hubs hook up the dryer so that at least I could get the smoke out of the clothes. I'm not a user of dryer sheets, but I had to buy a box to be able to reduce the camp fire smell.
Two weeks ago, the temps were in the 100's. Those poor fireighters - I never want to walk a mile in their boots. Then for 6 days we've been in the low 90s. But tomorrow back up to 100 and then 103. Temps like this with very low humidity, is not good for firefighting!
More later.
