Last week we decided we needed a mental health day and drove to Bend for the day. I'll post some photos we took in Bend in a few days, but I wanted to first post some photos of the areas we drove through which were burned by the Beachie Creek Fire from last month (the one which had us on evacuation notice). It has been described as a "once-in-a-century" fire, burning about 200,000 acres. As we drove through, we saw tree stumps and areas of forest still smoldering, even after four inches of rain and six weeks of time.
I'm glad I got to see this beautiful forest before it burned, because my guess is that it's going to be many years before it looks even close to what it did before, if ever. I heard a news report the other night that said a fire like this takes the forest it burns about 150 years to recover. So I won't be seeing it, obviously.
The strangest thing was the way the fire checkerboarded across the landscape -- taking this house, this tree, and sparing that one, so randomly. At the higher elevations near the peak of the Cascade range, the destruction was much more complete -- not a fern, a pine cone or a tree remaining.
Here are a few shots of the destruction:
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| You can see the destruction, all the way to the top of the mountains. |
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| Here you see more of a checkerboard pattern, with some trees left alive. |
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| Still smoldering, six weeks later. |
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| Miles and miles of it. So sad. |
thanks for sharing the photos. My kids that live in Bend had gone to the coast from Bend and were going to spend a week in the RV. The fire affected a lot of things down there such as power outages, etc. I followed this closely for awhile not really knowing if it was going to go up anywhere near Eugene etc. Just not familiar enough to know exactly where it was burning. Always sad to see a forest burned so badly and people losing everything. I'll be watching for your Bend photos.
ReplyDeleteI think there was one route from Bend to the Coast that was unaffected by the fire, but of course there were many people on it due to the other main highway being closed. There WAS a different fire which got quite close to Eugene though, you are right. This one was a little closer to Salem, an hour north of Eugene.
Deletethanks for the info - you are an hour away from Eugene - that helps. First time i saw Eugene i fell in low with it - there was a street fair going on - or street market - on a Sunday - this was in spring - weather was beautiful . We (my sis, her daughter and I) had a long drive from SoCal taking it slow and by the time we got to Eugene we knew from there it was the last leg of the trip to Bend - and stopped in Sisters for a bit and then on ....I want to do that drive again. I love Humbolt county in CA - ...the redwoods - all so beautiful. So you live in Salem. I had a friend years ago that moved there. anyway...looking forward to more pics.
ReplyDeleteoh and i remember him saying later on their way home there was a huge delay on the hwy for ..i think he said 10 hours ...he said they pulled off the road with the RV and their friends RV - and basically just relaxed and waited. it might have been that one hwy open to bend.
ReplyDeleteSo many people here have RV's and use them all the time in good weather months! We thought about getting one about the same time as COVID hit, and of course so did everyone else! I think CA and OR really offer a lot in terms of camping in beautiful forests, or the coast. We're very lucky.
DeleteSo much destruction, so heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty mind-boggling. Photos obviously don't show a time frame, but we drove through fire destruction for a good solid hour. So sixty miles or so, and that was just what we saw from the road. I'm sure it was worse in more inaccessible mountainous areas to the north and east. Very sad.
DeleteYes, to what you see from the road and imagine what you can't see. I saw something similar driving back from OR after the Carr Fire (Shasta/Trinity) in 2018. I-5 was closed on my way north, but I saw some of the aftermath on the drive home. The fire was still burning and smoldering in spots, and I passed many miles of incinerated trees and ashen soil, still very smoky for many miles as the fire continued in the backcountry.
DeleteWe came to Oregon for the eclipse that year and I remember it well! It was so smoky we didn't see anything, but I'm sure the devastation was awful.
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