Eastern Washington is burning up!

[Rerun]

The wildfires are 50 miles from me but their smoke has settled in Spokane and it is chocking.  You could not see the sun today.  It should have been a blue sky sunny day 85 degrees.  Instead it was brown with a red dot in the sky and it was 77 degrees.  I can even see smoke in my house.  My lights are hazy and it smells like a bad campfire.  All our home furniture and bedding and clothes will smell.  But we will all smell the same so only a visitor will notice..

Pray for the firefighters.  We have already lost 3 young men.  Very sad. 

The Environmentalists shut the forest down to thinning and logging of 50 acres here and 50 acres there and now over 400,000 acres have burned plus houses and wrecked lives. 

Don't let this happen again... Let us thin....

[cassandra]

I'm sorry Rerun, I don't understand why people sometimes have to be so shortsighted. I'm very sad about the situation at your end too.

Take care and love, Cas

[Jean]

Rerun, I know just how you feel, of course, I live in Ca. One only bright and shining light in this business is that the State of California has allotted funds to clean peoples houses if you have insurance. It works like this, your agent will not tell you this, but you can apply to a company ( I will find the name if you need it) they come in and checkout your home, your insurance co issues you a check for up to $10,000 and at the end of the year, the state then pays the insurance co. If you dont have insurance, of course, you are stuck paying it yourself. In our case we had a lapse of coverage because our agent is 2000 years old and we got nothing, even tho our porch was covered with burned stuff. I sincerely hop your fire fighters are all going to be safe.

[casper2636]

I have just moved to Ca., but had heard of these "wild fires", of course. They sounded absolutely horrible. But in arriving here, I got to see one up close. It was on the next mountain over, I could see the flames and smoke, but it's speed was amazing...it just "ran" up that mountain in a split second! How that vegetation was just...Puff! Gone!...Astounding! I could never really quite grasp how some one could get caught by a wild fire until I saw this. Thank god for all those BRAVE firefighters, and my prayers to those who are threatened. Be safe!

[PrimeTimer]

That part of Washington is so beautiful, it's hard looking at the pictures coming out of there on the news. And firefighters are a special breed. A friend of the family is a firefighter in that part of Washington, I pray he and his battalion are safe. His father was a firefighter....When I was young and moved into one of my first apartments, came home a couple days later and the apartment manager called me over. He told me that a firefighter had called the fire marshal because there were no smoke alarms in the apartments and he wanted to assure me that they would be installed before the end of that week. Gee, wonder who had called the fire marshall, it wasn't me....Fast forward many years and another apartment. I was awakened in the middle of the nite by a fire alarm on the outside of the building. I jumped up out of bed and swear, I heard our family friend, "the firefighter" talking in my ear and he was saying "Get up, get out, get up, get out". I quickly called 911 and then ran out the door. A young man in the Air Force who was a neighbor, also came running out his door. Together we ran door to door, yelling for people to wake up and get out. The fire trucks arrived in no time and fortunately there was no fire (they figured the alarm must have been pulled as a prank or malfunctioned). But I'll never forget...only 5 of us tenants actually went outside while the firemen checked the building and went door to door. Everybody else stayed indoors staring at us through their windows. Geez....what if there had been a fire? Did they think me and my neighbor banged on doors to wake them up just for the heck of it?? Wonder what the firemen thought...  Anyways, firefighters are a special breed and I am grateful to all of them.

[Charlie B53]

Hey Rerun,  I didn't know you are in the NW.  I was born and raised in Yakima.  Graduated West Valley in 72.  Left for the Army and haven't been back enough to visit two brothers and a sister.  Mom, Dad, and one sister gone already.

I grew up roaming those maintains, visiting many of the Lookout Stations,  meeting and talking with the guys that are, or were, constantly on the watch for smoke signaling a new fire.  Over many years and a lot of budget cut-backs, many of those stations are empty.

Tampico Ranger Station had a program in the 60's and early 70's.  Squads of live-in elder teen males paid positions cleaning camp grounds developing trails and always on immediate call for fire calls.   Both my older brothers spent a summer in the program.  Don't know why I didn't.  Could have been I was the Black Sheep, busy smoking pot and just having fun.

Sad to say but fire is natures way of replanting the forest.  Some species of pine the cones will NOT open to release their seeds until after having been through a fire.

Forestry was HUGE back then.  Mills almost everywhere.  Now even Boise Cascade is gone.  The price of lumber is just plain stupid.

Wish I could be back, I miss the snow capped mountains, the clear streams, float fishing the Yakima /River,  which is now catch and release ONLY.  But the trout have grown to world class so maybe it isn't all bad.

We've had fires before, we will have fires again.  It is a terrible loss and a heavy price to pay for being such a scenic wonder.

I really do miss the NW. Not just the trout, hunting deer, elk, fishing the salt water, the salmon runs in the rivers.  Always somewhere to go, something to do.

I haven't found anyplace else on this planet that has such diverse scenic lands all within just a few hours of each other.

It is very hard not to envy any of you still living in the NW.

Envy is a sin, but I am human, so I'll just have to live with it and Pray for forgiveness.

Take Care,

Charlie B

[Rerun]

Hey Charlie... so you were an Eagle?  I live in Knight territory but my neighbor kid opted to WV so I have to drive her there and pick her up once in a while.  Nice school.  I grew up out north and went to Riverside but I live in the Valley now.

I can't start a fire in the wood stove to save myself so these forest fires are a wonder.

It was still smokey today but I must be getting use to it.  These won't stop until we get a soaking rain.  dance dance dance

[Charlie B53]

Sorry, Rain Dances rarely ever work in the Yakima Valley.  We've always told people that you could plan a pinic ten years in advance, it AIN'T gonna rain.

The weather has changed tremendously since I was a kid.  It would snow up to 3 feet overnight, and school would only be closed one day.  By the next those buses would have chains on and our young butts were going to school!

Here in mid-Missouri I've seen them close the schools just because it was a little cold, only in the teens.

Yakima would get so cold it would warm up to Zero on a nice winter day.

I still miss it.

Best you can hope for is a serious storm to blow into Seattle off the ocean, maybe that air mass will push on across the mountains and help clear the air in the East side.  If you are lucky enough it may push some rain clouds over the top and help cool some of the fire, otherwise I'd be afraid the winds may just fan the flames even more.

Take Care,

Charlie B