Love your honestly and rawness and sending hugs. I was thinking of you and Beat when that fire was happening, and I really appreciated your updates. I can relate to this post in so many ways. The fires, living in the smoke with asthma, loss of my dad (and more recently, my mom). And also your concern for your neighbors and just the overall feeling of doom being on the Front Range during summer. I had moved to the mountains in 2019 after my dad passed and I could no longer deal with the heat and smoke with my asthma, but I had recently tried moving back to Boulder County. (Dumb idea for me to try it in the summer.) I was also feeling the doom this past week being in the Boulder area and watching it all unfold. But I had, thankfully, already decided I was heading back to the mountains and just came back up to Dillon on Thursday. Sadly, I didn’t get to connect with many friends while in Boulder this summer, and I hope we can connect again sometime soon. Hang in there. And I hope things improve soon with the heat and fires. For all of us in the west. Hugs.
We are experiencing the same thing here in Bend, OR. Fires all around us in the surrounding national forest and also popping up near town. I have a friend here that has only lived in the mid-west and east coast previously and she is much more concerned about wildfire than I am. Not that I'm NOT concerned, I am--but after living a lifetime in southern and northern California, I've lived through 2 major earthquakes (homes destroyed, freeways collapsing--you get the point), massive wildfires within a few miles of me, floods, landslides, beach cliffs collapsing, etc. Only having to deal with wildfire seems easy compared to what I have experienced my entire life. We also moved from being in a semi-rural, high-risk wildfire area to a more urbanized environment (more of a traditional neighborhood). So, that helps quite a bit compared to where we were living before. Not that that solves everything but living in a rural area, while nice, does increase your exposure and risk. In that case, moving is not a bad solution.
Yup, welcome to the inferno. We got in it a month ago..so early. I've reached an ehh..oh well attitude, probably got desensitized from all of those years fighting fire. Also I've chosen to live up a dead end canyon in the woods, so some of that is on me. However. I get so ragey when people who have never carried a chainsaw through a forest thinning just snap back that we should log the forests. No good answers to a complex subject. I.hope you get to move to AK or Switzerland someday.
Jill, I’m so sorry and share your doomscrolling and fear of fires. My son works on a ranch near Fort Collins and I’ve been monitoring the fire breakouts, worried about him and all the horses they would need to evacuate. Hang in there, the forecast calls for a pattern change with cooler temps and some precipitation.
Love your honestly and rawness and sending hugs. I was thinking of you and Beat when that fire was happening, and I really appreciated your updates. I can relate to this post in so many ways. The fires, living in the smoke with asthma, loss of my dad (and more recently, my mom). And also your concern for your neighbors and just the overall feeling of doom being on the Front Range during summer. I had moved to the mountains in 2019 after my dad passed and I could no longer deal with the heat and smoke with my asthma, but I had recently tried moving back to Boulder County. (Dumb idea for me to try it in the summer.) I was also feeling the doom this past week being in the Boulder area and watching it all unfold. But I had, thankfully, already decided I was heading back to the mountains and just came back up to Dillon on Thursday. Sadly, I didn’t get to connect with many friends while in Boulder this summer, and I hope we can connect again sometime soon. Hang in there. And I hope things improve soon with the heat and fires. For all of us in the west. Hugs.
We are experiencing the same thing here in Bend, OR. Fires all around us in the surrounding national forest and also popping up near town. I have a friend here that has only lived in the mid-west and east coast previously and she is much more concerned about wildfire than I am. Not that I'm NOT concerned, I am--but after living a lifetime in southern and northern California, I've lived through 2 major earthquakes (homes destroyed, freeways collapsing--you get the point), massive wildfires within a few miles of me, floods, landslides, beach cliffs collapsing, etc. Only having to deal with wildfire seems easy compared to what I have experienced my entire life. We also moved from being in a semi-rural, high-risk wildfire area to a more urbanized environment (more of a traditional neighborhood). So, that helps quite a bit compared to where we were living before. Not that that solves everything but living in a rural area, while nice, does increase your exposure and risk. In that case, moving is not a bad solution.
Yup, welcome to the inferno. We got in it a month ago..so early. I've reached an ehh..oh well attitude, probably got desensitized from all of those years fighting fire. Also I've chosen to live up a dead end canyon in the woods, so some of that is on me. However. I get so ragey when people who have never carried a chainsaw through a forest thinning just snap back that we should log the forests. No good answers to a complex subject. I.hope you get to move to AK or Switzerland someday.
Jill, I’m so sorry and share your doomscrolling and fear of fires. My son works on a ranch near Fort Collins and I’ve been monitoring the fire breakouts, worried about him and all the horses they would need to evacuate. Hang in there, the forecast calls for a pattern change with cooler temps and some precipitation.
No wildfires here in Kansas City Missouri