On Friday, the 2nd of September 2022, two fires broke out in the southern end of Siskiyou County. One was called the Mill fire which started at an old, abandoned wood Mill on the northeast part of the town of Weed. The same evening, to the west of Weed was the Mountain fire. Because of our dry conditions, both fires advanced quickly. Later that evening, the County Office of Emergency Services requested that cat, dog and large animal shelters be established for those evacuating from the affected areas.
I had just started my new job working for the California Department of Technology, and I felt it was bad form to drop everything as soon as it started, so I worked to the end of my shift and then I reached out to Stephanie the county Animal Shelter coordinator and asked her what I could do to help. She informed me that the cat shelter at the armory building at the Siskiyou golden fair grounds was in need of assistance to get their operations started. So, I immediately headed over to the Armory and helped out for a couple hours getting tables and crates set up for the cats and other small animals that would be evacuated to the shelter. In addition to cats, we had some bunnies and reptiles as well.
After getting my feet wet with the McKinney fire in August, I knew pretty much the process that had to take place. Stephanie would be tied up at the county Emergency Operations Center, and the ACO's would be out in the field. So, naturally, there would be an opening for me to take care of animal care at the shelter for the duration of the fire. The only problem was, as I indicated earlier, I had just started a new job. And though I knew the hiring manager, my direct supervisor was a different story. He and I had never worked together before, and he was new to state service and not familiar with some of the flexibility that can be afforded to state staff during natural disasters. Plus, the team I had been hired on to, had A LOT of work to do and I just was struggling in justifying how I would take a week off work when I was so new and there was so much work to be done and in a short timeframe at the Department of Technology.
So, after thinking about how long it took to do shelter feeding and care in the morning and dog socialization in the afternoon, I came up with an approach that I wasn't sure if I would be truly able to support. I thought, what if I got up at 4 AM, did cleaning and feeding from 5:00 AM to 8:00 AM, then worked my regular job, then went to the shelter from 5 to 7 PM and walked dogs and then shot to go to bed at 8:00 PM. Mathematically, if I stuck to the schedule, it would be ok. Well Saturday and Sunday, the 3rd and 4th, I was able to take a somewhat more leisurely approach to doing care at the shelter, with some helping out at Rescue Ranch thrown in for good measure.
Fortunately, the number of incidents in California was limited to a fire in Auburn and the Mill and Mountain fire, so we were lucky that we had sizeable amount of federal, state and local resources to fight the fires. The fires were pretty much under control by the 10th of September. Though containment lines were established, the fires were still putting up some ash that was traveling north to Yreka some 20 miles away and the ash was landing on the Jeep which almost looked like snow.
After the fires were out and resources were returned to their home areas, Remi and I took a ride down to the town of Weed to get a first-hand look at the impact from the fire. I have seen burned out areas before... the devastation from the Almeda fire in Phoenix Oregon will forever be burned into my memory, but I was feeling like I was becoming callous to the effects of wildfire and felt like I needed to be reminded of the individual impact on people from events such as this. It wasn't so much that I wasn't motivated to help anymore or anything like that. I just felt like I needed to be reminded of the loss that people experienced, so Remi and I took a ride.
It's so incredibly sad how people, animals and communities are impacted by natural disasters such as wildfire. Yes, I truly wish that when I graduated high school, that I would have pursued a career in Firefighting, but, even at my prime, I don't know that I would have been able to hack it. As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, in high school, I was such a weakling. Even though I was a marching machine, but my upper body strength was the pits. None the less, i wish I had tried... There would have been a lot of ways I could have made some sort of difference.
None the less, I am beyond thankful for the opportunity that Siskiyou County Animal Control as well as Rescue Ranch to be of assistance any day of the year, but especially during wildfires. I may not be able to contribute the way I could have in my prime, but I am able to contribute, and in the end, that is really all that matters.
Here is the video for this weeks blog. There is a whole lot more video content than stills in the post, I just didn't take that may still photographs this time.
Safe Travels everyone, Eric and Remi too.
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