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Caches in Fire areas


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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?

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Some won't be so easy to fix. The Soda Fire in SW ID has burned over 226k acres (414 sq miles), and from the looks of the fire map, has likely wiped out a power trail with over 500 caches. There are also a sizeable number of other caches in the area, in both OR and ID.

 

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.

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Will the owners go out and try and locate them? Will the ones that are gone be removed from the maps?

 

Some owners will and some won't. Some will be busy with on their fire damaged lives and homes, some are out of area, or out of the game.

 

It may take a year or more for there to be sufficient recovery to do replacements.

Here and there, even in the midst of the fire some caches may survive.

 

Area reviewers will likely go slowly on acting to disable or archive caches, as cache owners may understandably have other priorities.

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Here in FL the fires are a problem - some years wildfires, but even more frequently the prescribed burns which often occur with little or no warning to COs. Some containers get lucky. Some metal ammo cans can be cleaned and repaired if they didn't buckle or burst. Plastic container remains are often never found.

Edited by Joshism
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I've just planted 10 caches in the Australian scrub and intend to plant at least 10 more to celebrate our gold mining history. All of them, given our climate this year, will probably go this year due to bush fires. The gold mining history needs to be recorded, caching at the moment appears to be the only way it is going to done. So I will go back after the fires and re-hide the caches, re-coordinate as necessary and kick over a few rocks hopefully to find a big nugget

Edited by boothie103
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Area reviewers will likely go slowly on acting to disable or archive caches, as cache owners may understandably have other priorities.

 

I just read about three firefighters that have died fighting a wildfire in the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forest. I know that's probably a different fire than the ones mentioned by the OP but the news kind of puts the loss of a geocaches (even if it is a powertail consisting of hundreds of caches) into perspective.

 

I know that one of our reviewers/moderators lives in that area. Hopefully she'll lets us know that she's okay.

 

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Area reviewers will likely go slowly on acting to disable or archive caches, as cache owners may understandably have other priorities.

 

I just read about three firefighters that have died fighting a wildfire in the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forest. I know that's probably a different fire than the ones mentioned by the OP but the news kind of puts the loss of a geocaches (even if it is a powertail consisting of hundreds of caches) into perspective.

 

I know that one of our reviewers/moderators lives in that area. Hopefully she'll lets us know that she's okay.

Thank you for the concern. :) I am ok. Fortunately, this year, none of the fires have threatened me personally so far. But it's still early! We have a good two more months of fires coming up. It seems that the whole state is on fire right now. I have had friends that have been threatened by fire and had to evacuate, but so far I don't personally know anyone who has lost a home (at least not this year). It is constantly smoky everywhere, and we can't see our mountains that surround the valley very well or at all. I'm always hearing helicopters flying everywhere.

 

I have been meaning to post to this thread with my player account, talking about cache containers and fire, from my own experiences living in Dante's inferno. :rolleyes: Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, but I haven't been able to do cache maintenance because of the fires. I own one cache and maintain another in Chelan.

 

I was very saddened to hear about the firefighters, as well. My father's a semi retired firefighter, he'll help out when they're understaffed. Right now, he and my mom are helping with relief efforts. My husband is also a former firefighter and fought in the Castlerock fire that took out a section of our town 23 years ago. I may end up helping a bit this year with the relief, as well.

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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!" :(

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I own about 40 caches within the Rocky Fire burn zone here in California. Today the area was opened to the public so I checked on a few of mine. About 1/2 of them are destroyed. I will be replacing them. Plastic containers no longer exist. Ammo cans are bulged out, paint missing, gasket gone - can't be used again. But what I found interesting was the damage to the TB's and geo-coins. The TB tags melted! and all the paint was burnt off the coins.

 

There are about 40 other caches within the burn zone owned by others. It will take a few days hiking to reach all the hides but I plan on checking on each and every one.

 

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Makes me wonder if a cache could actually cause a fire under some freak circumstances. I suppose the usual lock'n'lock will not reflect and focus the sun well enough to cause a fire. But could a black film canister get heated up enough to set very dry vegetation on fire?

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Makes me wonder if a cache could actually cause a fire under some freak circumstances. I suppose the usual lock'n'lock will not reflect and focus the sun well enough to cause a fire. But could a black film canister get heated up enough to set very dry vegetation on fire?
This sounds like an interesting MythBusters episode...
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Makes me wonder if a cache could actually cause a fire under some freak circumstances. I suppose the usual lock'n'lock will not reflect and focus the sun well enough to cause a fire. But could a black film canister get heated up enough to set very dry vegetation on fire?
This sounds like an interesting MythBusters episode...

 

Oh yes, very exciting! The two guys place some black plastic containers somewhere and wait for hot weather. And wait. And wait. And then when the weather is right they wait for something to happen. And wait again. :P

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Makes me wonder if a cache could actually cause a fire under some freak circumstances. I suppose the usual lock'n'lock will not reflect and focus the sun well enough to cause a fire. But could a black film canister get heated up enough to set very dry vegetation on fire?
This sounds like an interesting MythBusters episode...
Oh yes, very exciting! The two guys place some black plastic containers somewhere and wait for hot weather. And wait. And wait. And then when the weather is right they wait for something to happen. And wait again. :P
But you know that one way or another, the episode would end with fire, and perhaps even an explosion. All in the name of science, of course. They're just demonstrating how far someone would have to go to actually create a fire/explosion, as part of busting the myth.
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Makes me wonder if a cache could actually cause a fire under some freak circumstances. I suppose the usual lock'n'lock will not reflect and focus the sun well enough to cause a fire. But could a black film canister get heated up enough to set very dry vegetation on fire?
This sounds like an interesting MythBusters episode...
Oh yes, very exciting! The two guys place some black plastic containers somewhere and wait for hot weather. And wait. And wait. And then when the weather is right they wait for something to happen. And wait again. :P
But you know that one way or another, the episode would end with fire, and perhaps even an explosion. All in the name of science, of course. They're just demonstrating how far someone would have to go to actually create a fire/explosion, as part of busting the myth.

When we're at high-points, peaks, or vistas, we're often surprised at the amount of glass bottles left by others.

It must have been a tough hike up lugging a couple six-packs, shame they couldn't lug the (now) lighter version back.

Mythbusters might have done it already, but I'd like to see what conditions it'd take for the Sun to start a fire through one of those bottles.

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It really depends on the severity of the fire as to what actions a CO should take. At the minimium the CO should disable the cache listing until the cache is checked out. For really severe fires the land owner may close off all or part of the effected area for days, weeks, months and years. There are issues such as erosion run-off, floods, standing trees, blocked road, and impassable trails that make the damaged area unsafe. It may be a long time before a CO can visit a cache to verify its existance and replace its damage. Also, that once beautify vista that attracked the CO to the site may no longer exist. In that case, why replace the cache.

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I am/was a cache owner as well as a firefighter. I have been fighting the Okanogan Complex fire for 17 straight days as of today,and I lost all three of my caches as well as my home nine days ago. It's starting to look like this won't be over until the snow flies. We did get a bit of rain this morning, but not enough to help too much. Since I lost all my woodworking equipment I probably won't be replacing my caches soon and I'm very sorry that a few TB's and a coin were lost to this monster.

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I am/was a cache owner as well as a firefighter. I have been fighting the Okanogan Complex fire for 17 straight days as of today,and I lost all three of my caches as well as my home nine days ago. It's starting to look like this won't be over until the snow flies. We did get a bit of rain this morning, but not enough to help too much. Since I lost all my woodworking equipment I probably won't be replacing my caches soon and I'm very sorry that a few TB's and a coin were lost to this monster.

I've been meaning to email you, but I didn't want to bother you if you are busy/overwhelmed. I wanted you to know that our family is thinking about you and praying for you (so is everyone else in our geocaching community).

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I am/was a cache owner as well as a firefighter. I have been fighting the Okanogan Complex fire for 17 straight days as of today,and I lost all three of my caches as well as my home nine days ago. It's starting to look like this won't be over until the snow flies. We did get a bit of rain this morning, but not enough to help too much. Since I lost all my woodworking equipment I probably won't be replacing my caches soon and I'm very sorry that a few TB's and a coin were lost to this monster.

I've been meaning to email you, but I didn't want to bother you if you are busy/overwhelmed. I wanted you to know that our family is thinking about you and praying for you (so is everyone else in our geocaching community).

 

Thank you.

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