Alright, alright, alright, alright, I'll write about the dang fire. But I'm having a beer while I do it.
So...the entire state of Colorado is having a little problem with...well, fire. And we, being in Creede, are close to one of them, called the West Fork Fire Complex. And it's making a lot of people...well, crazy. And most of this is because of listening to word of mouth, and not from the Sheriff's office or Forest Preserve folk. It's a little like the Boston Marathon madness that caused me to leave the blessed Facebook for a week. About 5% of the information is true and 95% is speculation. But first, to get this out of the way so you can calmly read the rest of the blog: The town of Creede, where the repertory theatre is and where I currently live/work, is still safe. Creede proper is not surrounded by many trees and is, what the Sheriff's office likes to call, easily defensible. If, in the highly unlikely case that any of the fire reaches the boundary of town, it would be easy to prevent the fire from spreading further.
What We Know:
What is it? The West Fork Fire Complex, which is this: http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3436/ Please do read--it can give you more detailed info than I ever could.
Bad news: This fire has the perfect conditions to do its dirty work. There are thousands of acres of dead, beetle killed spruce trees that are just going up in flames. As of this morning the fire was 0% contained and it is unknown at this time when the fire will become contained. It is erratic and "unprecedented". Crap.
Good news: There have been NO reported structure losses at this time. The fires are still 12 to over 20 miles from Creede itself. There is no pre-evac notice for the town of Creede (a 10-12 hour notice that a mandatory evacuation MAY take place) nor is there a mandatory evac for Creede either. The theatre has a couple different plans in place if the need for evacuation arises. We have had meetings and emails on a daily basis to keep us up to date on all of the information about the fire. Most of us feel pretty dang safe and well taken care of. Go CRT! So, you can feel good about supporting and donating to your local non-profits. Do it. Yay.
It is also important to keep in mind that in the grand scheme of things, this is a very natural and positive process. Meaning, fires start to destroy overrun forests and make way for new growth. It's been this way for a loooooooong time. Beetles kill the spruce, fire burns the dead spruce, aspen grow up in its place and provide shade, allowing for new spruce to grow. Thus making future fires unlikely for many years to come. Brilliant! Thanks, Mother Nature! Oh...there are houses there...well, you've gotta take one for the team sometimes.
So...yes...there may be damage and loss outside of Creede. Even though Creede is a town of about 400 people year round, there are many outlying areas that are in danger--4UR Ranch, Blue Creek Lodge and Wagon Wheel Gap to name a few. And though they are many miles outside of town, they are still considered the Creede area and HAVE been evacuated. South Fork, the town 21 miles from Creede, is 3 miles away from the burn and has been evacuated. Firefighters are working NON-STOP to control this fire. It is big. But it depends mostly on conditions (dryness, wind, temperature, amount of dead wood to burn vs. live wood). The conditions right now are so good that Mother Nature is dancing around naked on the burning hillside. Like she does.
Now that I've gotten the facts off my chest, I can let you in on my feelings. I have been through a fire before. One that was much more urgent and personally damaging, though on a much smaller scale. About 10 years ago, in Chicago, a woman on the second floor of my apartment building in Uptown lit a bunch of candles, probably drank too much wine, and then passed out/fell asleep. When she eventually woke, half of our apartment was on fire. I was woken up at 3 in the morning in my loft bed by an upstairs neighbor who sounded like he or she was running back and forth across his or her floor. Then there was a knock on my door from a police woman telling me I had to get out of the building. My mind flashed back to stupid college fire alarms caused by too much pot smoking, so I didn't take anything as I went to leave my first floor apartment through the nearby back door. As soon as I walked into the hallway, I saw that it was foggy. Smoky. I turned around, threw some essentials in my large purse (thank Jeebus for large purses), grabbed my cat and left the building. As I walked to the front of the apartment building, it was like a movie. Flames were lapping out of a second floor window and a few minutes later we just hear this "WHUMP" sound as the roof caught on fire. I put Oscar the cat in my car and stood with the rest of the neighborhood watching the place burn. Because, honestly, what else is there to do? (Besides making sure you have renters insurance, like I thankfully DID.) It is at the same time terrifying and beautiful.
Which is what the feeling is around here currently. RJ and I drove west yesterday to see if we could see anything and about 12 miles out of town you start to see flames on the mountain top. Yesterday, the weather report was completely clear. But you'd never know because the smoke was so thick it looked like it was overcast. (Mmm beer). We arrived back home and I freaked out a little for about 45 minutes. Even though we had to drive 20 minutes TO the fire, you can't help but feeling like it's RIGHT THERE. It is really fucking scary. And beautiful. People are on edge here. Some people with medical problems or small children have left voluntarily because of the smoke.
And you have to be really careful about what you say, in person or on Facebook, and about what you "heard," because 9 times out of 10, it's incorrect information. Even major news outlets are reporting incorrect information. So if you have questions about safety in Creede, please contact me directly. Getting information from people who are not in town or the immediate area, who always have the best of intentions, can end up making it worse. Someone posted an article which gave South Fork a low to moderate chance of survival. My own father had heard this information. And that information was speculative, but when people hear it, they think it's fact, or at least imminent. And right now, South Fork is okay. So I've been trying to stop leaving pissy comments on friend's pages and doing anything but extreme damage control to outright wrong information. And you know what? We're ALL tired of talking/hearing about the fire. It's exhausting and stressful and scary not knowing if we'll have an audience at the theatre for the rest of the summer, or whether the smoke will get so bad we DO have to leave. It makes me long for hot, humid and rainy Chicago even more than normal. Right now I could use some humidity and thunderstorms.
But I'm okay. We're okay. I'm not lying to you or sugar coating, it's just the truth. RJ is down working on the house today and hopefully in a week or so, all of our refinancing/appraisal business will go back into motion.
And for now, it's business as usual, if just a bit (or a lot) smoky. But right now, just right here in this moment, the air quality is good with not too much smoke. I have the afternoon and evening off and I'm almost finished with my Banquet of Beers. Everything's gonna be alright. Probably.
Great post Kate. Thanks.
ReplyDelete