Fire, Fire Everywhere

Fire is a very scary thing, particularly when you live in a log house on a tree farm. There have been three major fire incidents in our area in the last week; some of these have even made the national news, so you may have heard of them.

First, a nearby neighbor lost her under construction house to a fire. Not only did she lose the house, but she also lost her car and the yurt that she was living in while the house was being constructed. She was building the house herself (no loans), and didn't have any insurance. There are several fundraisers underway for her to help get her back on her feet.

Second, the Broughton Mill fire. This is the one you most likely have heard about. The fire started near an abandoned lumber mill near Underwood, WA, and due to the high winds and steep slope, the fire quickly climbed the hill and destroyed 5 homes on the bluff on Underwood Mountain. One of these homes was that of our friends Tad and Ginger who only had enough time to grab a few key items before evacuating - some photos, a laptop containing his work, jewelry, etc. The time between the first fire department warning and the last chance in the house was only 30 minutes. This photo, dubbed "Last Look" by Tad, was taken by him as he fled the house with the 1 carload he was able to save.

The third fire was another 20 miles west of the Broughton fire and involved yet another mill. The Co-Ply plywood mill caught fire less than a day after the Broughton fire, but burned for much longer. The mill was no longer operational, but instead was being used to store 20,000 tons of wood pellets, the kind used in pellet stoves. The fire department could only contain the fire to the mill site; they had no hope of putting out the fire, which was fueled by the perfect human-designed fire fuel. (This fire seemed fishy starting the very day after the start of the Broughton fire. They have recently made three arson arrests related to this fire.)

The scariest fire for us is by far the the local fire; we can see where the home was from our driveway. We weren't home on the day of the fire; we were in Portland celebrating our friend Rat's birthday (the "Ides of September"). But even more than that, we had our own brush with potential fire the very night before.

We were in the kitchen on Friday night preparing to make cookies for Rat's birthday. Corinne was working on the dough, and I started pre-heating the oven. As we were standing in the kitchen, we both heard a rather loud "Bzzzz" sound.

"What was that?", asked Corinne.
"It came from the oven.", I replied.

We opened the oven door, and saw the problem: the bake coil (on the bottom of the oven) had fractured in one spot, and that spot was glowing frighteningly red. We turned the oven off and instead gave Rat a container of uncooked cookie dough.

The coil has now been replaced, but if we hadn't been in the kitchen and heard the sound we hesitate to think what might have occurred.

- Mike (& Corinne)