Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

The West Is Burning

September 8, 2020, by JimC

You have heard me extol the beauty of the McKenzie River Valley, the route between Sisters and the University of Oregon in Eugene, where Ceili will soon enter her senior year. A long stretch of that scenic corridor has been devastated by a catastrophic wildfire that started last night and was whipped and driven by savage winds until it became a conflagration. Some 80 to 100 homes in the community of Blue River have burned and we are told to expect loss of life. Families were forced to evacuate immediately with nothing but what they could carry to their car. Some of them trekked east to Sisters to find friends to shelter them.

Places that have deep meaning for Clan Cornelius are reported to be lost — though I remain hopeful.

The catastrophic conflagrations that have swept the West twist the guts. Joshua Tree forests in California, gone forever. Towns in Oregon and Washington wiped off the map. Those of us for whom this landscape was a shaping influence, who love it in our bones, are feeling a sense of loss that is hard to describe. I keep hearing the words of Galadriel at the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring film:

The world is changed.

I feel it in the water.

I feel it in the earth.

I smell it in the air.

Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

I am grieving.

Filed Under: On Your Own Hook

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Comments

  1. Matthew says

    September 8, 2020 at 4:15 pm

    We are having some pretty bad fires here in Colorado too. Yesterday, the sky was tinted orange and ashes fell from the sky. The day before I went for a walk and my eyes began to water.

    Reply
  2. Thom Eley says

    September 8, 2020 at 4:50 pm

    Good article, Jim. Ceili will be a Senior, whoa, where does the time go.

    Reply
  3. Paul McNamee says

    September 8, 2020 at 5:28 pm

    Sorry, man. It is just awful.

    Reply
  4. Michael says

    September 8, 2020 at 5:55 pm

    I feel you Jim. A sad day.

    Reply
  5. Kay says

    September 8, 2020 at 5:59 pm

    I’ve been weeping on and off all day and am once more as I tap this out. It is absolutely devastating. All that beauty gone and people’s lives up in smoke in an instant.

    Reply
  6. wayne says

    September 9, 2020 at 12:44 pm

    Our daughter and her family live in Oakland, CA with fires on three sides. When I hear friends in our Southern Appalachian temperate rain forest complain of wet weather here I’m tempted to point out the terrifying possibilities of too little rain on a forest. There’ll be more homeless folks and fewer healthy forests in the West by winter. A tragedy.

    Reply
  7. Marianne Thomas says

    September 9, 2020 at 1:25 pm

    Thank you for expressing this, Jim. I have no words.

    Reply
  8. rebecca says

    September 10, 2020 at 8:03 am

    we are grieving also. thanks for putting words to what so many are feeling.

    Reply
  9. Katie Williams says

    September 10, 2020 at 2:52 pm

    Well said my friend. It is truly sad and heart breaking that we have lost so much and some have lost more than others. I mourn for the loss of the forest and the special places. But having lost a home to fire it is a void and trauma that is not easily overcome. I feel for those in that position. All we can do is band together and help where help is needed. Thank you for your eloquent words. ❤️

    Reply
  10. Ugly Hombre says

    September 11, 2020 at 12:29 pm

    2020 the year of the rat- just when you think it can’t get any worse-

    You get hit with another BU HAO!

    California is in flames as well. I had family members who had to evacuate up north. Red sky’s at night and dark in the day time like nuclear winter.

    Old man God seems to be pissed off..

    Keep punching every one. This to will pass.

    Reply
  11. Greg Marshall says

    September 12, 2020 at 3:22 pm

    Please stay safe. I’ve driven that route in from the coast, and it is beautiful. I remember going through Sisters though, and thinking, “What a lovely town, with the forest woven right through it.” I imagine it’s a concern now, though.

    We’re just dealing with the smoke up here and no fires (yet). The whole of Howe Sound and Georgia Strait are full of dense smoke, and if you look up, you can barely see the disk of the sun above. Our local ferry is sounding its foghorn as it makes the run to the “mainland”. Visibility is down to about 500 m at the sea surface.

    We love to travel in the US Pacific Northwest in normal times. I sincerely hope they will return.

    Stay safe.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      September 12, 2020 at 5:07 pm

      Thank you Greg. Safe at the moment. Terrible air quality. Looking toward improvement starting Tuesday. Precip likely in fire area.

      Reply
  12. Quixotic Mainer says

    September 13, 2020 at 8:41 am

    My deep condolences Jim. I’ve been off grid for a week plus, and hadn’t heard.

    Reply
    • JimC says

      September 13, 2020 at 8:42 am

      Thanks. Hope the time off the grid was a good one.

      Reply

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