Oregon's on fire!!! **Off Topic**
 

Borrowing a line from local musician, Alcyon Massive "Oregon's on fire"....southern oregon any ways.

If you haven't been paying attention the Illinois and Rogue Valleys are pretty badly ablaze right now.

Last i heard the town of Glendale (about 30 miles north of me) is being partially evacuated while Merlin(10 miles north), Cave Junction(Selma/Kerby)(25 miles West) are all on high alert.

Through the grape vine i've heard that fire crews from eugene and portland were heading down to help(not sure if thats true or not). Also, my girlfriends father who is a logger from Klamath Falls, is coming over today or tomorrow to help with clearing a fire line.

I work in Kerby(same area as Cave Junction) on Tuesday's so i'm in the thick of it right now. Visibility is about 1/4 of a mile, although i was told it was about 100 yards yesterday.

The below pictures were taken in Grants Pass over the past couple of days.

Wow... I heard about the fires, but hadn't seen the photos.

Hope everything is fine. We lost 19 firefighters last month here in AZ.

stay safe! wear masks to limit exposure to harmful contaminants in the air!

Might want to change your cabin air filter once it's all over... ;)

Yeah, i was planning on cleaning my K&N and swapping my girlfriends stock air filter for something new, no doubt they are both going to need it.

Does the FRS come with a cabin air filter? Maybe its time i read the F-ing manual eh? haha.

The girlfriend and I both had the day off today so we went for a "little" drive to get out of the smoker. Grants Pass to Brookings to Florence to Eugene to Woodburn then back down I5 to Grants Pass. We left at just before 4am so it was hard to tell how bad the smoke was going through cave junction/selma. We got to Brooking right around sunrise, stuck around for a couple of pictures then headed up to Port Orford for breakfast then back on the road. We made it to Woodburn around 12:30 and left around 4.

On the way back it was nice beautiful Oregon blue skys all the way with almost no haze until......

Wolf creek. It was very nearly like hitting a wall of smoke. The visibility was good enough that it wasn't dangerous, but it was still very very nasty.

Anyways we are back home in the smoker now. I stole a couple pics from my friends face books from today progress....

Sha-bam!
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24062

Those pictures look brutal man.

A guy I work with is in the National Guard and was just called today and told he needed to be down there tonight. Not sure what they will be doing exactly but there on their way down.

Yeah, a couple buddies of mine are in the guard and they are all going. I'm guessing the majority of the man labor is going to go into building the fire line.

My girlfriends dad(logger) said it usually takes a normal 3 man crew about a month to do a 7 mile stretch of fire line on flat ground. They need about 50 miles of fireline cut at the moment, on steep hillside which means mostly hand tools and grunt work.

Let your buddy know if he needs a beer i'm only about half an hour away :happy0180:

Todays update(8/1) the air quality has improved slightly to just "unhealthy(174)" for Grants Pass, "Very unhealthy(229)" for Medford and surprisingly "moderate(98)" for cave junction. I don't remember where i saw it, but this morning Wolf Creek was in the 600 range, maybe i was imagining that because its at 350 right now which is in the worst category of "hazardous", either way, no bueno.

Stolen pics as always...with a little irony

Today looks like the air quality is about as bad as its been since this thing has started. As of right now the air quality index is around 290** meaning that is is "very unhealthy". A 300+ rating would mean a rating of hazardous which is as high as is measured or categorized.

Pics from the GF's and my trip from Medford to Grants Pass today, they are all just outside of Grants Pass on I-5.



**http://www.deq.state.or.us/aqi/index.aspx