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Oregon fires

Foul Mike

Gunny Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Apr 18, 2001
3,090
4,920
Eastern Colorado
Damn, what a mess that is. It is going to be horrible for a lot of people for a long time out there and I pray for them.

I know it has been hot, dry, and windy for a spell out there but what got so many fires going within such a short period of time?

Kalifornia has a lot of fires as well as most other western states and here in the Colorado mountains we have had and are still having several large fires.
 
You do notice, that all the fires are in Dim run states, don't you?? I'm NOT a holy roller, but, maybe God might be sending a message. Anyways, I feel for the people of all the states that are lit-up right now and wish them all to be safe and strong. Mac
 
I remember standing on the floor of a drilling rig watching lighting strike and start fires in the grass on the prairie around Canadian TX. Drop a match in a tinder box. It will make some nice grassy pastures where all those trees burned out for next 10-20 years.
 
I too have seen fires started by lightning, careless stupid campers, downed power lines, started by welding, coming from a trash burn or burning shit out of irrigation ditches that ALL got out of control and burned up things not intended to burn; they usually had a weather thing, like unexpected winds and/ or not being prepared well enough for containing their fires or something like that that got them going.
What puzzles me is how so many fires started in Oregon in such a short period of time?
Something had to be the source of ignition, what was it? So many so fast?
Damn sure a lot of fires that started really quick in a fairly localized area, miles apart, and are burning out of control.
The power line fires I have seen, when the lines went down the breakers shut down the line so I am not buying that they all were caused by power lines down.
But, there was some source of ignition wasn't there?
 
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I will have to see if I can dig up the map I was looking at at work the other day. I thought the one I posted was it. But when you moused over the fire. It listed what started it.
 
Damn, what a mess that is. It is going to be horrible for a lot of people for a long time out there and I pray for them.

I know it has been hot, dry, and windy for a spell out there but what got so many fires going within such a short period of time?

Kalifornia has a lot of fires as well as most other western states and here in the Colorado mountains we have had and are still having several large fires.

My colleague who lives in San Francisco sent me a photo from inside his apartment looking out AT 11 AM this morning Pacific Time. It looked like sundown or sunrise. Not enough light to light up his apartment. Cars were driving with their headlights on.

Crazy

Hell in SF.jpg
 
It's burning up Southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley pretty damn bad. The fires narrowly missed my family's home, we are extremely lucky. If you know anyone living in the Rogue Valley or east of Salem, reach out to them.
 
Yeah. Talked to my parents and friends still there. A few live down near Medford. Guess it is pretty apocalyptical there right now.
 
It's burning up Southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley pretty damn bad. The fires narrowly missed my family's home, we are extremely lucky. If you know anyone living in the Rogue Valley or east of Salem, reach out to them.
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Ya.. fires all around me, Bald Peak/chehalem , Cherry grove and hagg lake area, had a text from buddy down in Mollala that there evacuating . Things are real dry and the wind storm we had knocked a lot of limbs down into power lines, still couple area's with no power here . It still pretty windy today over here west of Hillsboro area . Had a pile of broken limbs, cones to clean out off yard and roof yesterday, and Sky pretty grey right now in middle of the day .
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I spent much of 2013 in Medford and there were a lot of fires that year. IIRC, many were from lightning strikes. I remember at worst, visibility in town was only 1/4 mile.
 
Last nights scanner traffic had 3 vehicles associated with the fires. Listening to the scanner and noting it on google earth - it is highly unlikely that all of these fires were naturally caused. They are too far apart. Calls for 'new' fires lasted until @ 2:30 am. Then they stopped. Just now scanner traffic reporting a dumpster fire at one of the hospitals - again, highly unlikely that is a naturally occurring event.

This morning crews from Josephine County / rural JoCo rolled into town as well and were headed to White City and Eagle Point for the Obenchain fire

Talent OR is missing @ a mile of structure along Hwy 99.

The fires continue. Wind advisory in place through tonight at 8 pm.

(Possible) Commies inside the wire and doing dirt.

fire.jpg
 

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I live in Southern Oregon very near some of these fires. For those of you that don't know, everything south of Eugene and all of Eastern Oregon is very conservative and pro LE, etc. There are rumors floating some of these fires may be intentional. I guess we will see.
 
I was thinking Commies, Gooks in the wire too.
Burned out or shit up Portland, so move on.--- What else can we fuck up?
Way too many fires-- way too fast. They had to have had an ignition point somewhere. Is that under a high power electric line? I doubt it.
I don't think it was all caused by wires downed by tree branches, knowing what I know about electric wires and their built in protections.
A lot of good people are being burned out of house and home and some losing their lives.
In my area we have a lot of high wind events and nothing like this goes on.

I pray for ALL of the people in harms way out there.
I pray really hard for the Fire Fighters and Cops out there that are trying to herd these cats.
 
Many years ago I was on a Hot Shot fire crew and we responded to many fires.

That was 50 years ago before beetle kill, when logging was still being done and the sawmills were working.

I never went on a fire of the magnitude of the fires going on now and I fought some big ones to us at that time.

Something is amiss.
 
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Sorry to break the news to some of you.... Branches on powerlines will cause them to arc or burn.
Fires happens where there is fuel.
There's plenty of fuel here in Western Oregon
As to that the fact that we've had two and a half days of extreme winds in and around Portland.... 30-60 mph on the valley floor and up to 80mph on the hilltops. Those winds also grounded all of the few air assets that we have.
It's a perfect storm of sorts... Dry fuel, high winds, powerlines and idiots....

We had an arcing event on our street two days ago and a friend just had a tree burst into flames due to contact with a power line. Thankfully Portland Fire was contacted early in both cases and sent a crew to put the flames out.

We spent most of last night moving 31 horses out of our barn to another nearby facility due to the Chehalem/Bald Peak fire.

I just got finished packing go-bags for the family... We'll be ready if the word gets sent. It's stressful.

The police did manage to capture the motherfucker who is believed too have started the fire that were burning west of Eugene.
Hopefully he'll have an accident.
 
Praying for y'all in harm's way 🙏

Just got done packing up some go bags, small suitcases with memorabilia, meds, camping gear, water, food, etc. Went over the plan with the wife should we get separated.

I have NO idea how I'm getting the stockpile out in a timely manner...

It's all abstract until it's you in the hotseat, no pun intended.

Be safe everyone, Godspeed.
 
I guess it was 2002 I was Oregon on 2 different occasions fighting the sour biscuit fire. It was A big bad SOB! If I recall that was at that time the biggest fire in Oregon history. Firefighting was the best job I’ve ever had but it was sad to see all the devastation. The western states need more prescribed burns imo.

Good luck and stay safe!
 
This is sitting in a residential building (shop) with 5 other much nicer street rods in the current west end of the #holidayfarmfire which was was evacuated at 1:30 today. I bought the car in 1989 from my best friend who has since passed. I have hundreds of hours in upgrading every aspect of the car, not sure if I'll every see it again at this point.

No guarantee at this point that we won't be evacuated from our home in the next few days.

105,000+ acre fire with less than 200 wildfire fighters on it. It started Monday night at 10:30, 45 miles east of us.

No one is coming..... it's up to us.

Remember that when you vote for the political mouthpiece of your choice.
 
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*** If anyone in Oregon needs help evacuating, I have a 3/4 ton truck and a 12’ flat deck trailer if you need help. Message me, I check this site all the time. I’m in Tigard area, if your inside the Williamette valley feel free to reach out***

Didn’t even think about it but a customer couldn’t come out today because they couldn’t drive between Bend and Portland side. There’s one way for them now and it’s probably packed. Out of nowhere most major highways are closed. Highway 84 was closed between Pendleton and la grande for high winds, and closed going north into Washington for a fire. There’s suddenly very limited options to get out of this valley.


Not everything is a conspiracy. The fires by Ashland and Puyallup were suspected arson with suspects in custody, certainly there could be more. But the largest fires were caused by lightning strikes 3 weeks ago and were stable until a few days ago when the winds blew them up. It sounds like Detroit Lake, Mill City, Gates are gone or heavily damaged. Unlike the fires down in Cali there were 70 civilians and fire crew that called in helivac from Or national guard at Detroit and they couldn’t fly. I guess some forestry dudes mapped out dirt roads all the way to government camp to get out alive. That’s a LONG fucking trip on fire roads.

It’s wild seeing the evacuation centers getting evacuated. The stage 1 evac zones are practically to Portland. The entirety of Clackamas County is in evac mode, half of it is mandatories.

We had a power line a few streets from us go down. We can watch the fire at Hagg lake from our street. I’ve spent a lot of time in California and was Fire for a while, never seen an area so completely choked by smoke. It looks like a straight up apocalypse movie without a break for days.
 
Worked for the FS just north of Oregon a few years back. Every time they scheduled an area to selective cut, a local "environmental" group would sue to have the cutting stopped. Unmanaged land causes an abundance of growth that easily burns in these dry conditions. That group even solicited donations from the local public praising the good that the did for the forest.
 
Im.in medford and last couple days have been pure chaos, we've been evacuated twice from work, multiple people i work with lost there homes Tuesday night in the Phoenix fire ... very sad situation
 
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I will be heading back next week and be slumming around Salem/Albany so peeking out the plane window flying over OR should be interesting. Just got the text alert last night that ORARNG is activated and teams are going out. I am surprised it took this long to activate the first three teams. I worked wildland fire suppression back in 94-98 all over Southern and Eastern OR. I sure hope its just the high winds, dry summer, and the perfect storm for wildland fires and not a bunch of arsonist retards trying to make political statements. If it is they better hope they end up in custody on a work crew building fire breaks and not caught by the good ol boys of rural OR.
 
I have no idea as to what is going up there other than it is horrible. I pray hard for people caught up in this.
I find it hard to believe that out of all of these fires that some sick, demented assholes didn't start one or more of them.
I have seen on other sites that the LE has caught some arsonists, some even in the act of starting a fire. Good for them
Any way that you look at it--If some of these fires are arson, those Assholes feet should be held to the fire.

The patterns for these fires just doesn't work out for me. Granted that some are along downed lines and highways but some others are not, yet they all burn together and people are losing their homes and businesses and lives.
Some with only one way out,

All I can do at this point is pray for them and I know how that works and my hand is full of spit.

Should they catch an arsonist in the act, I would suggest wiring him to a tree with barbed wire and let the fire burn.
 
Dow B on the cojones in a jacuzzi would work, why let them hug a tree for solace?
 
Wire them up with their backs to the trees and see how they hug that. Use lots of barbed wire so no getting away from what they have done.
There is no way I can put out how sorry I feel for the people in that area that have lost all, to include their lives.
A bullet is way too fast, let those arsonists reap what they have sown in the flames they started.
I have zero fucks to give for these terrorists and their causes.
 
It's burning up Southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley pretty damn bad. The fires narrowly missed my family's home, we are extremely lucky. If you know anyone living in the Rogue Valley or east of Salem, reach out to them.
Can you tell me if some friends of mine that live in Beaverton, should they evacuate? They are young and new to the area and are not really sure what to do. Thanks for any advice
 
Not necessary to evacuate in Beaverton. Same with most of Washington County.
The winds have died down so the threat of new fires, at least on the West side of the Willamette River is greatly decreased.
I'll post a link to Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue twitter feed and scanner channel.


 
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Not necessary to evacuate in Beaverton. Sims with most of Washington County.
The winds have died down so the threat of new fires, at least on the West side of the Willamette River is greatly decreased.
I'll post a link to Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue twitter feed and scanner channel.



Thanks a million, greatly appreciated!
 
I just got back from Eagle creek and Estacada and it pretty bad over there and I smoked a pack of Cig's today by being over there breathing . A lot of people have moved out of that area for safety. There was also a little bit of looting going on in Estacada, and one of the locals in Eagle creek, told me they were looking for a guy seen trying to start a fire. Funny how just a little bit of hard times always brings out the thieves and assholes .
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Nature is taking care of a problem that has been created by Green Peace and our local governments. They were told fifty, "yes 50", years ago that the dead trees needed to be cleared. They refused, Green Peace. They were told the Beetle Kill needed to be cleared. They refused, Government and Green Peace. They were told fire lanes needed to be cut. They refused. Government. On and on and on.

Had this been taken care of properly for the past 50 years we would be in a far better position for soil erosion. New forest planting and maintenance. Now we have nothing.

Thank you Green Peace and our Governments.

On the bottom of that Oregon Fire Danger Sign is this saying. "Keep Oregon Green" Don't have to be concerned about that any longer.
 
To compound issue or rub salt in wounds, the people manning the road blocks into the Level 3 evacuation zones are allowing people into the zones without checking for ID that verifies they are a resident of the zone. There are numerous reports today from the Holiday Farm Fire Zone of peoples residences being looted. Very close friend's were evacuated yesterday at 1:30pm and his wife went to see if they could get some close and food from the house and she was let in and not even checked for ID. This 30 mile section of the highway has many $500K to $1.2M residences not to mention the belongings. There are also three other valleys this fire which is now easily over 150,000 acres that are evacuated. Target rich environment for looters is a gross understatement.

The Public Safety our tax dollars fund are an EPIC failure. 2020 has solidified that fact tenfold.
 
A sharp looking woman in a Yukon going to get clothes probably doesn’t look like a suspicious looter.
 
About 12 homes lost near Lincoln City.
Anyone who has spent much time in the coast range has seen the huge fuel load available. Too many years of no slash burns and poor management.
What most people don't know about are the arson attempts which happen every summer. They aren't made public.
Wouldn't be the least bit surprised if ANTIFA has a hand in this. Doubt we'd hear about it if Dear Leader Brown has any say. She protects her little buddies in black.
The evening news is on while I'm typing. Sounds like the looters are out and active along HWY 22. Oh, and they just announced ANTIFA isn't doing it. They sure solved that question quickly...........must of just asked them and believed what they were told.
 
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I heard on the radio news this AM on my way to the range that they have found quite a few dead people in the paths of these fires.
They didn't give a count but did say they expect the number to go higher.
If any of these fires are in fact proven to be these ANTIFA bums and their ilk, I hope the ones they have captured never see the light of day again.
I would also think that anyone caught in the act of setting a fire should be shot right there on the spot of their crime and left for the scavengers to pick their bones clean. Shoot the looters too.
Ask me how pissed off this whole bin of shit makes me.
 
I heard on the radio news this AM on my way to the range that they have found quite a few dead people in the paths of these fires.
They didn't give a count but did say they expect the number to go higher.
If any of these fires are in fact proven to be these ANTIFA bums and their ilk, I hope the ones they have captured never see the light of day again.
I would also think that anyone caught in the act of setting a fire should be shot right there on the spot of their crime and left for the scavengers to pick their bones clean. Shoot the looters too.
Ask me how pissed off this whole bin of shit makes me.
Latest I'm getting is there are additional bodies being found and more are believed dead. Also, at least one of the Oregon fires is under investigation as arson.
(still have a few buddies on the inside)
 
Praying for y'all in harm's way 🙏

Just got done packing up some go bags, small suitcases with memorabilia, meds, camping gear, water, food, etc. Went over the plan with the wife should we get separated.

I have NO idea how I'm getting the stockpile out in a timely manner...

It's all abstract until it's you in the hotseat, no pun intended.

Be safe everyone, Godspeed.

thanks prayers are working ! wind shifted yesterday around 2 pm bringing in cooler and moister air