Oregon Wildfires...

July 17, 2002

Anyone else having spasms of apprehension at the thought of one or more of their caches getting burned up? This one I am pretty sure is little more than a cachemelt now:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=25272

navdog did find and log it, and took some good pictures, but soon after he left they closed the roads down and apparently the fire jumped the Metolius. :-( He may be that caches only finder! I also had 2 travel bugs in there! ARGHHH.. It was a regular ammo can stuffed to the gills with goodies. Afterall, it was the Holy Grail, we didn't take any shortcuts.

I know there must be others, maybe we can start a cache wildfire loss support group.

July 17, 2002

I'd say we just found our first entry for the Museum of Geocaching, if it ever gets built.

The first cache is gone already so what else is out there that can be added?

July 17, 2002

The Squire Fire in Southern Oregon is bearing down on this cache from the Northwest:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=27298&decrypt=y

Homes on Sterling Creek Road and surrounding area are threatened, and things don't look good.

July 17, 2002

Is there a website with map overlays of the fires. I had not thought much about this until I remembered that Buzz Lightyear is out that way. Hope he's ok.

July 18, 2002

Take a look at this site:

fire maps

Gary // Team Grayrun

In a split second, all your priorities change.

July 18, 2002

Wow peanuthead.. seems this is not a good year for wilderness caches.

Team Grayrun.. excellent site. I had a few problems getting it to load the other day but it seems to be up and running now.

PS Got word from someone who has property up near "The Quest" cache and he said that the cache site may be ok. The fire didn't jump the river until downstream from there. I will have my fingers crossed!

July 18, 2002

As I recall, there was an ammo can cache in WA which successfully survived a forest fire last year. At the time of the fire, the cache owner attempted to reach the general area to try and determine it's fate, but was turned away. After the fact, I believe he found the container intact, although some of the contents may have melted somewhat due to the heat.

Let us know how yours turns out.

-

July 18, 2002

Zzzoey...

The line under your avatar image... Isn't that a Pink Floyd reference?

-fractal

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

N 45° 30.ish

W 122° 58.ish

1.1k · July 18, 2002

If you want to see a lot of fire maps and information about such, try going to here :

http://www.nifc.gov/fireinfo/nfn.html

This is not the main page but you should be able to work your way around.

July 18, 2002

fractal: yup

July 18, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Zzzoey:
fractal: yup

Right on

July 18, 2002

I think... seeing as we "bond" over Floyd... maybe a cool decal could be sent my way. I am making a few road trippin' geocaching cd's.. maybe we can do a swap

July 21, 2002

I'm fairly sure the Winter fire has eaten my cache up on Winter Rim as well as my son's (Gutshot) cache at Fremont Point. The Winter fire and Toolbox fire merged within a short distance of my cache. Even worse I think hunting camp has gone up in flames. Won't know for sure until it opens back up and I can get a peek but it sure doesn't look good for the home team. I know fires are part of nature and good for the forest and wildlife in the long run but it hurts to see memories go up in flame.

Don't think, just do it

1.1k · July 21, 2002

are laying all around. It seems as the smoke is shorting out the power lines that travel through the area. As the thick smoke gets near the lines, the lines arch and have been zapping cows. Understandably, the fire fighters are not getting in the way. The power can not be shut down due to the Californian's need it to run their day to day stuff. As for caching in that area, I will have to rethink a confluence cache. As for deer hunting, Well Bufford, I drew a Deer tag for that unit.....

July 25, 2002

On Monday evening we had a big thunderstorm roll over and as we were placing a new cache, we saw rainclouds pouring over the Eyerly Fire area. Along with lightening. It seems that the fire may be out, but the lightening caused some others more near Sisters. INCLUDING CACHE MOUNTAIN!!! ARGH!!!! How are you guys doing down there by the Toolbox? Anyone know anything about fires in the Ochocos? Paulina?

P.S. It sure is great to see blue sky and breathe without rasping again! We'll try to get in and see if the Quest for the Holy Grail is toast or if it survived!

July 27, 2002

The last three days have been the worst for smoke in the Rogue Valley. When the wind blows from the west, we get smoke from the Biscuit-Florence fire, and when it blows from the north, we get smoke from the Timbered Rock fire. Combine that with temperatures in the mid 90's, and it has been pretty disheartening.

July 27, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Peanuthead:
The last three days have been the worst for smoke in the Rogue Valley. When the wind blows from the west, we get smoke from the Biscuit-Florence fire, and when it blows from the north, we get smoke from the Timbered Rock fire. Combine that with temperatures in the mid 90's, and it has been pretty disheartening.

The wind is blowing out our way since yestereve and we are getting an orange sky from the Bisquit-Florence and Bisquit-Sour fires.

Makaio, you might want to look at a map for those and see if they affect your Mr. McGrew cache. I was worried about Gone Bughouse and Where's Waldo? but both of them are on the opposite side of the 199.

I wish I knew why the color of the sky is depressing me. I feel torn between a desire to go back to bed and get in my truck and drive south.

How much red would a redwood red if a redwood could red wood?

July 29, 2002

Friends, the fire situation is getting critical in Southwest Oregon. If you go to www.geomac.gov and click on the Florence Fire or the Timbered Rock Fire you will not believe what you see. These fires are Exploding at this time. The entire towns of Cave Junction, Selma, and O'brien have been put on 30 minute evacuation notice. Residents on Elk Creek Road above West Branch Elk Creek Road are being evacuated. Hwy 199 is closed in Northern California.

3.1k · July 30, 2002

We haven't seen the sun in days up here. The fires are a few miles away but aren't headed in our direction. Yet. The maps that Peanuthead posted are great. Really shows you what's going on.

We are out of here in the morning. I can't breathe and hopefully puget sound isn't on fire.

Never Squat With Yer Spurs On

1.5k · July 30, 2002

Living in Bend, all I hear about lately is the Cache Mountain fire situation... I had no idea how bad things were in the Florence area

July 31, 2002

Good luck to you folks that live down there. We are having clear skies for the first time in weeks. Amazing how quickly you take that for granted. I know it is natural to have wildfires, but this year the usual summer fires seem much more ravenous than usual. The cache mountain fire seems to be out, or mostly out, as we went to Vista View cache tonight at sunset and saw very little smoke. I will cross my fingers for you guys in Southern Oregon.

August 1, 2002

since i was evacuated last summer from a campground near Merlin last summer by two anonymous yet potentially life-saving firefighters, I'm beyond sympathetic to the residents of O'Brien, Selma, Cave Junction, and surrounding communities--especially those that live west of hwy 199.

August 1, 2002

Current SIT maps show the eastern edge of the Sour Biscuit fire is still about 2 miles west of where my cache is located.It has, however, burned up alot of area on which the McGrew trail runs. It's gonna be interesting when we go back next spring.

-

[This message was edited by makaio on August 01, 2002 at 12:03 PM.]

August 4, 2002

The Winter/Toolbox fire is in the mop up stage finally. While the area is still closed to the public a fellow cacher that works for the Forest Service has been in the area for rehab work. He was kind enough to check on several caches in the area. Mine, which was in an ammo can, survived with only the plastic contents inside melting. My son, Gutshot, on the other hand wasn't so lucky. The fire melted his aluminum container and burned all the contents. Hopefully everyone else will fare as well as I did.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cachelog_details.asp?ID=80666&L=495678

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cachelog_details.asp?ID=80664&L=495655

Don't think, just do it

1.1k · August 4, 2002

Caches are one thing. They can be replaced. Now, the important part. How did your hunting area do? Are you going to have to scout out new ground? Same here. Lost our ground and have to move.

August 4, 2002

Thanks for your concern Logscaler. I heard from Ranger Bill today that deer camp survived the fires. The fire burned in a mosaic pattern up there and camp was in one of the lucky spots that survived. It's great to have geocaching/Forest Service connections that you can feed coords to and who will check things out....Thanks again Bill.

Don't think, just do it

August 14, 2002

Was just out doing field work and noticed what looks to be a new fire. It was sitting low on the horizon, just south of Mt. Jefferson, and north of Three Finger Jack. After about a half hour, Three Finger Jack became swallowed by the smoke cloud. There has been no lightening, so this must be human caused!?!?! Anyone know anything????

It is so darned hot today and has been all week, and we have had about 3 nice weeks with no smoke, but this fire season seems far from over! We have been able to see a faint haze of smoke toward the south from the Biscuit fire, but have had a relatively nice coupla weeks now since the Eyerly fire was contained. Anyone know anything about the Hemlock fire, whereabouts it is? We hiked up Black Butte on Saturday and were able to see little wisps of smoke still coming from the Cache Mtn fire but for the most part it looked done. Really fascinating to see from that vantage point, how the fire came over and around Cache Mtn, then crawled down the hill and a big tongue of it reached out to Black Butte Ranch. If you had binocs you could probably see where the two houses were burned, but for us it was fascinating just seeing the way the fire traveled.

Anyway, just wanted to know if anyone knows anything or has heard anything about a new fire in the Cascades. I would guess it is not far from the Santiam Pass highway.

August 14, 2002

I just looked on GeoMAC and though the fire doesn't seem to have a name yet, it is sure showing up on the infared as ACTIVELY BURNING there! It is right next to Marion Lake and between Three Finger Jack and Jefferson. Gosh how quickly these things get going!!!

3.1k · August 14, 2002

Sadly we have another new fire in the Rogue Valley. IT's just east of Medford. Seems a tree branch knocked down some lines and it's exploded. A small fire quickly turned into 200. They are expecting it to be over 1000 acres by morning.

The bisquit fire has close to 400,000 acres gone now. The skies are horrible here and it's hard to breathe. Caching has about stopped in our area.

Never Squat With Yer Spurs On

August 14, 2002

I heard it was over 100 degrees at the coast! This heat is the last thing we need!

L&MM: that's so awful, the last thing you guys needed was a NEW fire. This will not be a good year for rural Oregon caches, OR cachers...I am afraid

But losing a cache seems pretty unimportant when people are struggling to keep their homes from getting torched.

Perhaps you guys should head up this way.. Team Disgruntled Blazer Fan and illDRIVEuNav and I (Zzzoey) just placed 4 more caches in our area as Kelly's Heroes.

August 20, 2002

OK.. I know this is not a big deal for most of you, but it has been so dry lately you could make prunes outta plums in 2 hours! The dust is so bad that we have to caulk spots in our truck trim that allow the air to come in.. But today... ahhh.. today.. it rained.. barely. Enough to make everything smell nice, then the sun came out again. Just wondering how the biscuit fire is doing?

3.1k · August 21, 2002

It rained for 30 seconds here today. Just enough to turn the wipers on, then it quickly stopped. We've been told that the bisquit fire will burn until the rains come later in the fall. It's claimed over 400,000 acres now.

I wanted to check out a couple of caches in the fire zone but all roads in are shut down until the fall.

Never Squat With Yer Spurs On

September 8, 2002

MIXED NEWS! Well, we finally were able to get out to the site of the Eyerly Fire here in North Central Oregon. The preliminary reports were true. Nature in Balance geocache is burned up. We placed a new microcache near the old one to commemorate the original: Out of the Ashes: Ode to Nature in Balance

We also went up to the site of one of our first caches, The Quest for the Holy Grail Although the cache itself survived, the area was burned in spots, and the initial waypoint was vaporized, along with the large snag that the film canister was tucked in. Sad to say that snag had an osprey nest way up in the top of it, and that of course is gone too. We archived the cache, moved the ammo box and made new waypoints to it, this time out of metal tags. The new cache is Out of the Ashes: The Quest Lives! Please check out all of the sites, as I put up quite a few pictures we took of the aftermath of the wildfire.

September 26, 2002

I was at Bridal Veil today when i heard a multitude of sirens. I got in my car to check out what was going on, and it turns out that Oneonta Gorge was on fire. Despite all the smoke, it looked like a relatively small fire, but i couldn't tell if they had it contained or not. The cops were closing the exit east of Multnomah Falls on I-84 to all traffic as i was leaving. In case you've never been, this is on the trail up to Triple Falls.

September 26, 2002

Witnesses said that the fire began at the logjam near the outlet of Oneonta Gorge (which is pretty close to the old Hwy). The fire quickly swept up the hillside but was contained within a couple of hours. Whew! Way to go, firefighters!

August 21, 2003

This thread needs to be reinstated. Chunks of ash are falling here as we speak. I feel like I should start singing Christmas Carols....

I haven't yet looked at the fire perimeter maps, but I am sure there are some caches close by...

PS Paulina did your Cache Mtn cache survive Cache Mtn 2 fire?

Zzzoey for Zzzoey & illDRIVE

WARNING: I cannot be responsible for the above, as apparently my cats have learned how to type.

August 21, 2003

We have had 3 fires in areas where there are caches located. The area are still off-limits, so no info on if the fires burned up any caches yet. I do know of one that was in the area where firefighters confirmed the coordinates were within the burned area. We might have lost up to 6-7 caches. One fire was started by an idiot 17 year-old kid tossing a cigarette butt in the dry grass. He might get the $300,000.00 bill for firefighting costs for his stupidity.

"The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec/sec."

-Marcus Dolengo

August 21, 2003

Just saw the 11 o'clock news and heard that the 'B&B Complex' fire grew from 4,000 to 11,000 acres today. I have tears in my eyes. We have found a few caches in the area and hope that they are not compromised. The first that came to our mind was Eden.

I have been trying to find out the current boundaries of the fire--have gone to Geomac Wildland Fire Support--but keep getting error messages after selecting the Wildfire Mapping link. Have checked the 'System Requirements' per the webpage and we are all good there.

Are there any Central Oregon folks or others in the know able to give us an update?

--laurak of dasein

August 22, 2003

My 'Cache Country' cache is becoming a maintenance nightmare. I'm quite certain that Cache II burned up the starting coords. Can't get in to check it out yet. I really don't mind working on this cache because I never tire of being up in that area.

"At this place we had wintered...and lived as well as we had any right to expect"

-William Clark-

August 22, 2003

quote:
I have been trying to find out the current boundaries of the fire--have gone to http://www.geomac.gov/--but keep getting error messages after selecting the Wildfire Mapping link. Have checked the 'System Requirements' per the webpage and we are all good there.

Are there any Central Oregon folks or others in the know able to give us an update?

--laurak of dasein

I tried looking up the perimeters in the middle of the night (insomniac) and they hadn't been offloaded to Geomac yet. But this morning they are there. Here is a doctored view. It is BIG. This also shows the area of the Cache Mtn and Link fires.

WARNING: I cannot be responsible for the above, as apparently my cats have learned how to type.

August 22, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by smithdw:
We have had 3 fires in areas where there are caches located.

Yep, one of them might be the first cache I ever placed: Halfway Up...

quote:
One fire was started by an idiot 17 year-old kid tossing a cigarette butt in the dry grass.

It's such a shame that the carelessness of one person causes so much damage.

----

Never let Common Sense Get in the Way of Determination.

August 22, 2003

That's BBBiggg. Ironically, it started in an area that the Gov't has been thinning feverishly the last couple of years, so as to prevent exactly what happened. Gotta wonder if the President is barking up another wrong tree.

I know that I'm crazy, but I'm inclined to 'let it burn'.....It worked well for God.

"At this place we had wintered...and lived as well as we had any right to expect"

-William Clark-

August 22, 2003

Here is a map of the Booth fire from 8/21/2003 showing where it has burned down around Suttle and Blue Lakes. Not near the Eden cache yet!

Without geography, we're nowhere!

August 24, 2003

Here is a link to the B & B Complex website.

Fire perimeter maps are updated everyday.

http://www.pnw3.com/bandbcomplex/

August 26, 2003

Holy Schmokes~! That Booth fire is huge. No wonder the highway has been closed. And no wonder we have been living in an ash tray. Very sad to see the areas around Suttle Lake, Blue Lake, Round Lake and Square Lake burn up, but I tend to agree with the great Chief Paulina... it seems Mother Nature will have her way no matter what precautions we take. I can't help but think though, that getting the smaller fuel out of there has to help keep the fire from burning so hot. Those tall pines can withstand some fire, but not the inferno of a full-on oven. I am amazed at some of the trees that have survived the Eyerly Fire. As far as the possibility Bush is barking up the wrong tree... is the sky blue?? OK.. so lately it hasn't been with all the smoke.. But somewhere out there it is.

WARNING: I cannot be responsible for the above, as apparently my cats have learned how to type.

August 26, 2003

We flew back in to PDX from PHX this evening and you could see the fire easily from FL400 (Flight Level 400 = 40,000 feet). It was a large bright red line across the landscape with huge plumes of smoke rising. Very awesome, indeed.

-----

Matt

K7MTO

August 27, 2003

Yup, it's getting nasty out there. My sister-in-law's guy is doing the helicopter pilot thing over there in Prineville, I believe. Not sure if he's gone over yet We were hoping he wouldn't have to go, as we're approaching a group vacation....

--------------------

You have the right to defend yourself, even when geocaching!

2.8k · September 1, 2003

We just flew back from Phoenix yesterday and although the flames weren't noticeable (hopefully that means they are getting smaller) the amount of smoke was just incredible. It looked like the whole center of Oregon was under a smoke cloud.

The forecast doesn't look so good for helping get this fire put out.

September 4, 2003

I thought things were getting under control but it seems the B&B complex has exploded today. It looks like it is snowing outside, and all the poor kitties look as though they have dandruff. (maybe they do) I have the AC on because it is so hot, and it doesn't seem to filter out any of the smoke. Summers make this seem not such a great place to live (Central Oregon), after all. *sigh*

Zzzoey

latest fire map

WARNING: I cannot be responsible for the above, as apparently my cats have learned how to type.

Oregon Wildfires...

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