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As nightmares often do, ours began with a telephone call in the middle of the night. Our daughter in Eugene had heard about a wildfire moving our way along the McKenzie River and said we should leave immediately.
The 2020 Holiday Farm Fire still seems surreal: the suddenness, magnitude and backward direction of a merciless wind. My wife, Julia Sandidge, and I spent that night at our daughter’s house, and the next day we moved into a hotel expecting to stay a night or two.
As we pulled into the hotel parking lot, we saw people unloading cars filled with pets, luggage, plastic bags, laundry baskets overflowing with clothes, photo albums and teddy bears. And then we did the same.
In the days to come, we would stand outside the Walterville feed store to hear updates from local officials, hoping for miracles but being left with hard truths. “The wind’s picking up. Zero percent containment.”
We tried to be optimistic, but it became increasingly difficult as the days grew darker in the thickening smoke. Children were anxious to leave their crowded hotel rooms and return home. Parents tried to console them by smiling and telling them everything would be OK. Then they went to the shower, where no one could hear them cry.
As the fire grew, I realized how easy it was to become homeless, and just as I thought that things couldn’t get worse, I received a call from Springfield police. They asked for my name and address.
“Did you ever live in Detroit?” the dispatcher asked.
“Yes, why?”
She explained that my old Detroit Free Press identification card had been found in a trash bin at a Main Street gas station. An employee saw a man and woman arguing as they discarded what was of no value to them. He became suspicious and called police, who arrested them a few miles away with our stuff, which included jewelry Julia inherited from her mother.
The fire destroyed some 400 structures and 173,383 acres, a couple dozen shy of taking ours. Our evacuation lasted nine days, longer for others.
When we returned home, we didn’t celebrate. We realized that many people were returning home to ashes that day, rock fireplaces left standing like grave markers, vehicles burned to the shell. We assessed damage caused by the thieves, who broke in through a rear window, allowing smoke to fill the inside of our house.
Five years later, I can still smell it. We painted the house, but smoke remains stuck to my bones. And whenever I drive past the hotel where we stayed, I am reminded of the fire. It smolders below the surface of these past five years.
Fire season began early this year. In May, Gov. Tina Kotek warned that forecasters expected ideal conditions for wildfires to persist. She asked for our diligence and good judgment.
“Should we move from the forest or face the risks?”
It’s a question I ask myself each June, and the answer always comes back the same. We stay because living here is worth the risk. It’s better to love deeply and risk losing it all than to feel no love for where we live and whom we are with.
This is our small corner of the world. The river and trees are a big part of it, and at the end of a long journey or a hard day, we begin to breathe again as soon as we see the river. It is our touchstone, and it welcomes us home.
Of course we take precautions, and our “go” pile is poised for a quick escape.
But we focus on our reasons for staying: grilling burgers in the evening with friends, feasting on trout caught that very day, falling asleep reading a book in the hammock, pushing our grandchildren on the swing when they come to visit – acts of innocence in an increasingly guilty world.
We understand that fire plays an important role in nature and that forests were not intended for people to live in. But for many of us, neither were cities with their noise, traffic and crowds – their lack of privacy and solitude.
Fire has taught me to stay in the moment, to be aware and grateful for what’s around me, above and below me. When Julia and I go for walks, with our dog, Yogi, I pay attention to my breath, so that it is in sync with my body. I pay attention to light. And to the direction of the wind.
