councilwoods

I didn't realize that the trackable numbers were reusable if lost. So I can use the same tracking number that was on the one that disappeared and just reassign it to a different object? How long is a reasonable amount of time to wait before reassigning? Thank you for the link. I will look into buying those instead of a cutesy one like I did for our last one. Glad I asked!

OK that was what I was afraid of. Thank you for the responses!

My family is new to the game this year but seems like every spare moment I have, I am researching caches to visit or searching out information. This will definitely be a life long hobby for me if not my children as well. We bought our first trackable and sent it out on a mission. I knew from reading other posts that trackables disappear. At $15 a pop, I don't know how much money we can invest in trackables. I am pretty sure the one we sent out is long gone. So my question is where the cheapest place to buy trackables? And does it help to get plain or ugly ones so that people are less inclined to keep it?

I just learned about the firefighters that have lost their lives as well. I have been battling my asthma due to the smoke and have been in and out of the hospital, so I am a little behind. It is such a horrible thing. I have been praying this whole time that we would not lose any lives. Lots of wildlife have died and structures/houses have burned but to hear that firefighters have died is even harder to bear. My heart goes out to everyone involved. I will be doing my best to help our community when I heal up and see what my family can help with. Caches aren't priority right now....you are definitely right about that. However, when things calm down I would like to volunteer any help I can offer to building back up our area. Our local kids are scared and lives are disrupted right now, so anything that can help bring normalcy back to our part of the country would only help to benefit everyone. Stay safe everyone...From my son "Smokey the Bear, come save us!"

That is the reason I am asking. I live in Eastern Oregon. We have 5 fires in our County, 1 right next to our town and then the Soda Springs fire just a little east of us. Most of our caches will be gone.

Thanks everyone. I will let them know what you told me.

Our family is new to geocaching and actually were out locating caches when the wildfire closest to our town started just over the hill from where we were. Too close for comfort. Anyway my boys were asking me, what happens to the caches after all the fires are out? Will the owners go out and try and locate them? Will the ones that are gone be removed from the maps? It's sad and devastating for our area and I am just trying to keep their spirits up. We weren't able to go out on the 15th as planned because the smoke trapped us inside our home so we missed out on that for this year. What can we do to help?