By Gillian Flaccus
The Associated Press 

Oregon rain forest no longer safe from wildfires

 

AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus

The frame is all that remained of a melted gas station sign in Blue River, Oregon. The unincorporated community along the McKenzie River east of Eugene was one of many places in western Oregon devastated during a 72-hour firestorm last fall. The state's unprecedented fall 2020 wildfire season burned 4,000 homes and more than 1 million acres in areas that are not normally associated with wildfire.

OTIS, Ore. (AP) - Wildfire smoke was thick when Tye and Melynda Small went to bed last Labor Day, but they weren't too concerned. After all, they live in a part of Oregon where ferns grow from tree trunks and rainfall averages more than six feet a year.

But just after midnight, a neighbor awakened them as towering flames, pushed by gusting winds, bore down. The Smalls and their four children fled, as wind whipped the blaze into a fiery tornado and trees exploded around them.

When it was over, they were left homeless by a peril they had never imagined. Only two houses on their street in Otis...



For access to this article please sign in or subscribe.

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024