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September 1, 2009
Fire on the Mountain
They say smoke follows
beautiful people. I guess I’m blessed, because according to the
Fire Gods, they must really like me. Last year, around this
time, a tire blow-out on I-84 sparked a wildfire that came right
up to the back fence of the Gorge View Condos, where I was living
at that time. Amazingly, that back fence, and the tireless work of
the firefighter crews, kept that blaze from harming any
structures.
I guess it’s hard to describe
what’s going through your mind when there’s a fire, literally at
your back door. You start thinking about what you can put in your
car, and if you can even get your car up to your place anymore.
And, of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a
frustrating and helpless feeling. All of a sudden, tracking down
the latest news reports becomes an important task, and you hope
that the news answers more of your questions, rather than leaving
you with more unanswered ones.
After the fire is out, it’s an
amazing feeling to walk through the area that burned. You’re
looking around at the view like it’s on another planet, like it’s
not real. It’s black, sooty, dirty, and clean all at the same
time. You wonder why some things are gone and why some things
remained.
You truly appreciate people that you don’t
even know, who are out there in full turn-out gear, trying to save
your property.
So, of course, after that,
where was my next move in life to?
That’s right, the sleepy town
of Mosier.
And on Friday night, the
sleepy town was more like “Incident command post central-fire
truck-helicopter-news van -depot-staging area.” Trucks and
emergency vehicles descended from the land and air from all over
the state to fight our Microwave Fire.
And once again, people I
didn’t know were showing up in full turn-out gear trying to save
property.
Peny and I were downtown at
the old gas station, after watching the fire activities from
Huskey Road. As we were just about to
head up the hill to gather up some things, some friends happened
to stop by and talk. These folks were on their way to
Portland, and for some reason, they had 4
bags of extra ice in their car. They figured since we didn’t have
power, that we could use it.
We were about to put it in our
car, when I took one more look at the 75 guys gathering at the old
gas station, trying to figure out how to deal with this situation.
And I said, “You know, these guys probably need this stuff more
than we do…..lets see if they have room in their ice chests.”
And it turned out, they did.
And it also turned out that the guy who helped load the ice bags
into the truck knew Peny, from an art class at
The Dalles high school.
Peny later said to me that she
wasn’t sure how he would turn out — apparently he may not have
been the most cooperative art student.
But I think he turned out just
fine.
(The “View” from the deck at home.
Normally, there’s a full view of the Gorge from this point)
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