This has been a difficult post to write, I’m devastated over what has occurred this week and it’s with a very heavy heart that I journal this. I’m keeping this short and limiting to how this has impacted us – but know that every fiber of our beings reaches out to those who have lost everything, those who have sacrificed, and those who we know will come to learn of loved ones lost to these wildfires.

It’s been amazing to see the response from the community. There are some amazing people that have risked themselves and set-everything aside to help people to safety, evacuate and transport animals, and work closely with shelters and local emergency groups. Our utmost respect to the firefighters, national guard soldiers, and emergency responders that always run toward danger.

Labor day weekend was nice, we did several things on a less than serious level just to relax. We did get a little more canning done (more beans and some roasted tomatillo salsa). Then Monday night everything went haywire.

We noticed that it was getting smoky out and by Tuesday morning the sky was orange and dark. The wildfires northeast of us along with a new fire directly east of us were fuelled by unusually high winds that overwhelmed responders. In less than 24 hours Blue River, Oregon was overcome and the “Holiday Farm Fire” aka the McKenzie Fire had gone from a small blaze to 30,000 acres.

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Utility companies learned from the Paradise Fire in California and with the forecasted winds, heat, and low humidity – our power company elected to turn off their grid Tuesday morning. We’ve had fairly stable power where we live so haven’t done a ton of power-outage prep. We have a generator, but it’s small and will not power our well pump.

This left us without running water.  We had some bottled water on hand and ran to town to get some more just in case. Otherwise, we were prepared for a short term outage. Plenty of food, fuel, light, heat, and security. Our small generator is capable of running all the refrigerators and freezers along with a few household items if we plan carefully.

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Ravengrove is on the west side of the Willamette Valley fairly distant from the McKenzie fire’s closest evacuation zone. Our son lives closer to it but was safe in his Springfield apartment. We weren’t too concerned unless something happened more locally.

By Wednesday morning the McKenzie fire had grown to a staggering 100,000 acres. The wind was predicted to continue for part of the day. The power company said they would work on restoring power provided conditions improved.

Work wasn’t possible so we did a few things around the property and by evening we had power back. But then – a fire broke out about 3 miles east from us. Quite a few things run through your mind in these moments. What should we do first? Should we consider evacuating just in case?

Reports initially indicated that fire crews would have it contained, but of course, social media made it sound much worse. Given what was happening to the east we decided to move the horses to a friend’s house just so if we needed to evacuate we could do so without that added stress.

We prepared ourselves, got everything lined out for the cats, and dogs, planned what to do to free the other animals to give them a chance if needed. Better safe than not. Fortunately, the fire crews that responded contained it quickly…. This time.

Thursday passed without any real change in the evacuation zones near us. As of Friday, the McKenzie fire has grown to 160,000 acres and is still 0% contained. It has displaced 17,000 people. Fortunately – everyone we know and love that are in the fire and evac zones are safe. We worry about what may happen if this comes into the Springfield urban zone. Our son is ready to evac should they give the order.

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For now we wait and watch, hoping that rain will be here soon and tbat the fire crews stay safe.

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For more information on the McKenzie Fire click here:

My favorite resource for fire tracking in Oregon is the RAPOR system – click here