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| Smoke at 8:00 a.m. today |
My grandmother, Ina Dobson, wrote the following to
her son Vance in September 1934:
The
fire was pretty bad. The men fought it over two weeks day and night up and down
the canyon. It spotted across the canyon onto the side of the bench on which
stands “the old crag,” and was into our hay before we knew it. Well, in a very
short time cars were arriving and men spilling out with sacks, buckets,
shovels, etc. At least a dozen cars came. They were on that job all Sunday
night, Monday, and Monday night. They dug a trench down the canyon side to the
old road that day and back fired along it for there was danger of the fire
crossing the canyon and coming down on our side and it would have just swept us
clean if it had. You see, the grass is awful thick over west and this old fence
row running through to the west from the “green grove” is a rod wide at least
and a regular fire trap, so with a west wind I don’t think we could have saved
the house after this grove got afire.
The other day, son Milo remarked that if there should
be a fire here right now, it would be really bad. His words reminded me of the
above account that my Grandma Ina wrote in 1934. Fire devastation is a chance
you take when you have a country home. It’s why anything I consider
irreplaceable is at “the other place.”
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| From the top of Plank's Pitch |
Today’s photos show how the smoke from the “MM49”
fire is impacting the ridge and the canyon.
3 comments:
These fires are crazy!! Usually the fire season is pretty much over by now, but this September is going overboard. I do remember a day in sixth grade when I was home for lunch and one of the neighbor boys appeared at our back door saying there was a fire in the tree behind out house. He had been up there in a tree house smoking and started the fire. Thankfully Dad was home for lunch (a rarity) and he jumped up, ran outside to grab the hose, and ran to the tree, climbed it and put the fire out. I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't been home.
The Orofino hillside did burn from time to time. And sometimes kids were the culprits. In fact, I don't think there are as many trees on the hillside now as there were 100 years ago. Mother said that one of her classmates (1927) prophesied that in future the trees would be gone.
I'm not good at keeping track of the seasons from year to year, but I think this year's fire season IS later this year. And if the weatherman can be believed, it will be 100 in the Valley on Sunday (90 at the farm). And then cool again, of course.
I received an alert that a bunch of smoke is rolling in tomorrow. It said to close windows, stay inside, and run an air filter. I have an air purifier, which has a new filter--not an appliance I ever would have thought I'd need, but we have gotten a lot of good use out of it with all the dusty house projects we've done. It was in the mid 80s today and I'm enjoying the cool air with the windows open. I might just chance it and keep them open through the night.
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