Pomerleau Family Blog: Wildfires in Oregon-2020 was an awful year

We first started hearing warnings about potential wild fires on the Sunday before Labor Day. It had been super hot in the 90s and close to 100s and very dry. It was supposed to be very windy in the next few days and we were in a drought. Little did I know just how awful the fires were going to be. We got back from camping it was sweltering hot on Monday. By Monday night the wind had picked up. The fires began Monday night September 7th, they began quickly and many residences had little to no notice. They ravaged on until they finally got in better control by Sept. 9th. By the end 4,000 homes were burned down and nearly entire small towns like Paradise and Detroit were reduced to ashes. It was devastating to watch but the community pulled together and there were stories of neighbors making fire lines and fighting fires to prevent their homes and their neighbors homes from being demolished. There were 3 large fires going on all in separate areas of the state-one called Santiam fire along Detroit Lake but then converged with the Riverside fire which was in Clackamas. The fire came 100s of feet away from the City of Estacada which was on a Level 3 evacuation notice for almost a week. There was the Holiday fire down south that was devastating homes and communities along the Mckenzie River and then the Alameda fire that devastated communities in Paradise and Talent down near Ashland and Medford.

We were on high alert in the Tigard area as there was a small fire that was burning in the Chehalem Mountain area north of Newberg. The city of Newberg had to be evacuate on Tuesday but they were able to contain the fire luckily and no houses were lost (just some outdoor structures like barns and sheds). Meanwhile during all this, I was working and trying to help our poor customers who lost homes the best I could. Our Weather Catastrophe team got set up pretty quickly but we had to call and touch basis with our insureds until they were set up and mobilized for several days. We had to work the weekend too to make sure they were being helped. We had investigators looking into the cause of the fire and they were a combination of several things I believe including human caused (1 it appears was the cause of arson), another started because electricity companies maybe should have shut off power and down lines caused a fire, others were caused by lightning and bone dry weather conditions, and lastly the biggest reason which we cannot ignore was climate change. Studies have shown that each year it was been getting dryer and dryer and windier and winder. This obviously led to the perfect storm of conditions causing the fires.

My family was spared of the fires. None of us lost any homes. We did, however, have to deal with stifling smoke that lingered for several weeks. The smoke was so awful that we only went out for short periods of time. The dogs did not get a walk for 9 days. It was too hazardous to be outside for extended periods of time. I wore a N95 smoke prevention mask that I had from work and wished that we had an air purification system. Each day we watched the Air Quality forecast to see what level of hazardous air we were at. The air was so bad everywhere-even at the beach so we couldn't really escape. It was even bad up north. The days blur together but the kids did get stir crazy and so did the dogs. We started online school and it was so smoky outside that I had to take my annual back to school pictures inside. Finally, by September 18th the winds blew and we got some much needed rain and we finally went back down into the moderate air quality level and then finally a week later were back down to green. I was very sensitive to the smoke. I felt like I was in a fog and was tired and lethargic, my throat burned and I had frequent head aches. My asthma flared up and I had problems breathing. I will never take for granted our normal beautiful clean air!

The stories I heard from my customers were amazing. Most were similar to what I heard from the California fires I helped out two years ago-the Paradise fires. They were given little to no notice of the impending flames and just grabbed what they could and fled with their pets and families. The highways were full of people fleeing. Before these fires I had always thought that this was something that just happened elsewhere like in California but now I know that wildfires can happen anywhere and anytime. And we need to change our behavior as it is only going to get worse in the years to come. These photos are in chronological order dating from September 8th through September 18th. Some were taken (the one below and the one of Newport) were taken by friends on Facebook.