Two Bulls Fire

Bobbe enjoying a Saturday at Snowshoe Inn

 

This was our first view of smoke, or clouds?

View from Triangle Peak

Time to return home and pack

We did not have to leave Snowshoe Inn for this adventure.  Saturday afternoon Bobbe came out and asked me about a cloud or was that smoke in the sky.  I was in the process of servicing my equipment and my equipment trailer was attached to my truck.  We used Bobbe's Subaru to drive to Triangle peak a few miles north of Snowshoe Inn off  U.S.F.S.  Rd 4601.  Before we got there we knew that it was not a re-burn on the controlled burn along Skyliner Road a few weeks back.  It was two fires a few miles north of Snowshoe inn.  We returned home, I packed up my trailer with out finishing servicing my equipment, Bobbe packed a go bag and most of our irreplaceable items in the Subaru.  As we drove out River Rd a neighbor informed us that the Sheriff's office was about to call for an evacuation of the neighborhood.  With that information we returned home to pack more belongings.  They can not force you to leave but once you leave they can keep you from returning to your home. 

The Sheriff's office informed us that the middle school had been chosen as the evacuation center, and from previous presentations form the SO we knew that evacutees must check in even if they have an other place to stay.  Bobbe evacuated with the animals and some of our belonging to my mom's house in town.  Paul & Daria also went with Bobbe to my mom's house.  It was better for all of them to be together for support.  I stayed and got sprinklers going on the perimeter of the landscaped area to add to my fire safe peremeter.   Snowshoe inn was designed and landscaped to withstand being over run by a wild fire.  In 1979 the Bridge Creek Fire came with in a few hundred feet of the cabin on the property.   In 1990 about the time we bought the property the Aubry-Hall Fire burned 10 miles east of our property.  I forgot to say that I have a 50 gal/ minute gas pump and 20 gallons of class A foam on the property.  Only two of us in the neighborhood stayed me and Ken Strode.

View east Sunday morning  :( 

View to west Sunday morning :)

I began posting information as I could find it and photos I had taken on our first trip up the hill on my facebook page.  The neighborhood also has a e-mail list that we use to communicate items of common interest. I also sent e-mails out to the list to keep people in the loop.  Initially the two fires  were about 7 & 9 miles north and east of Snowshoe inn.  Winds were from the northwest which means the fire was going toward Skyliner Road 5 to 6 miles to the east of us. That was good, not heading directly toward us.  On Saturday it ran about 6 miles.  We were lucky that the winds died down Saturday night.

View from Subdivision Monday morning

On Sunday morning it was perfectly clean and no smell of smoke in the air.  That was unsettling but the normal night time down hill flow of air kept the smoke away, but Bend got it.  Sorry!  As the day progressed no information was posted to the federal fire page on the internet InciWeb site  http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/  In fact the second  posting after the fire was first posted was 28 hours later.  That is the slowest posting in all of the years I have been following wild fires on the site.  Later on they did start a facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TwoBullsFire   This site had some dated information but it turns out that the best information was local TV and Radio stations.  I continued to post to my facebook page and our e-mail list as the day progressed, The fire was so far away and being in a canyon I could not see much of what was happening.  Sunday afternoon the winds changed and smoke begin to come up the canyon. The fires blew up on the west side but it did not last long the the fire was stopped.

On Monday the weather continued to be calm and the fire settled down.  This was the only fire in the region and the State moved lots of resources on the fire.  The combination of lots of resources and calm weather kept the fire from spreading much.  It was stopped and the job of trailing the fire continued.   I felt my home was not longer at risk of being over run.  I needed to work so Monday afternoon I left and drove into my mom's place to join Bobbe, Paul & Daria. 

From Awbry Butte next week

More fire damage from Awbry Butte

 Tuesday  night the evacuation order was lifted but it was too late at night to return home.  We went home after work on Wednesday and tried to put life back together again.   Today is June 22, a vast area around the fire is still closed to the public,  Bear wallow road behind Snowshoe Inn is still closed.  I do enjoy the quiet but would love to get out and explore more.  I believe the closure order will be lifted sometime next week nearly 3 weeks after the fire started. 

Life moves on .  I think some are rethinking what they can do to firesafe there homes for the next fire.  It could be the the one that over runs the neighborhood.  We have our annual fire meeting in a few weeks.  Maybe the Two Bulls fire got some peoples attention to the reality of living in the forest environment.

5/31-6/1/14 Oregon's Out Back-Silver Creek, Freemont NF

Last year Bobbe and I began trying to get out and see as much of the PNW we have never seen.  There is so much to be seen  BEFORE we retire.  Life is good, we love our jobs, but are limited on about of time we can travel away from our home in the Central Oregon Cascades.

This weekend we drove to Silver Creek drainage on the Freemont NF.  From Bend we drove south on hwy 97 just past LaPine, Oregon and then continued Southeast on hwy 31.  It always takes a little longer than Google maps says but well within our 4 hour travel time.  We parked our rig at Silver Creek Marsh CG.  It is only 10 miles from hwy 31 all paved but the last 3 miles was rough.  For some reason there was shrinkage cracks in the asphalt across the road every 40 to 100 feet and the cracks were 9 to 12 inches wide.  It made for a bone jarring 3 miles at 15 mph.  The campground was nice, many large pines and the marsh to the east.  Three Travel trailers were set up as we entered the campground and one tent showed up later in the day.  Lots of room for everyone.

Part of the adventure is Geocaching.  We choose a home base and then find geocaches in the area.  Our first geocache was near Thompson Res.  Before searching for the cashe we had to check out the campground, not bad, lots of tent sites. Most of them would have been too small for our rig (61 feet long from front of truck to back of trailer and generator).  The  reservoir was looking a little low for the end of May.  Most of SE Oregon has been having several years with very low snow pack and it shows.  Without summer rains wild fire season will be something else.  Lots of overtime for the firefighters.  We found the first cache under a large rock over looking the base of the dam and the roaring creek.  Lots of wild flower in bloom, choke cherry, bitter cherry, and service berry.

 Then we were off to find the next cache on the summit of Hager Mt.  We drove across the dam, and up a very rough road.  I put the little Suzuki in 4 wd to keep from spinning out, but we did make it.  Near the end of the road to Hagar Mt we saw more wild flowers, bright red paint brush, wild strawberry s were also in bloom.  The road ended a few thousand feet  (elevation) below the summit and we walked the last mile or so to the summit.  Very steep, hot, and mosquitoes, Did I say mosquitos, lots of them and no bug juice today, we left it in the trailer.  We will not do that again.  It took a little over an hour to make the climb to the summit. Every now and then we could hear a grouse in the forest near by but could not see him.  He was searching for a girl friend and we did not want to interfere.  Bobbe relaxed at a nice picnick table just below the summit while I climbed into the rocks in search of the cache.

After a short search I found it over the side of the cliff.  Views were great and photos just do not give the area justice.  A couple of hours later we were back to our trailer, a beer, dinner and OH, the sofa.  A well earned rest after a long day.

Sunday mornig we did not get up too early, this is our holiday right!  Nice breakfast including rubarb sause from my garden and toast.  Toast over an open flame, much better flavor than the stuff make in an electric toaster.  After breakfast we jumped into the suzuki and began to search for a cache we had missed on Saturday.  After several wrong terns we found the cache on the East bank of Silver Creek about 2 miles from our camp, but a 15 mile drive.  We saw lots of new country and many other great camping sites.  We now have an excuse to do a return trip and check out so much that we did not get a chance to explore more complitely.

We returned to the trailer, packed up and hit the road to our home.   We took our time picking up 3 more geocaches on the way,  Thanks to all of the other geocachers for the geocaches we found and have yet to find.