The fires in Oregon

In case anybody's been wondering, I don't think I'm at much risk from the fires afflicting this state.  The worst fires near Portland are in Clackamas county, south of the city.  The nearest serious news is that the town of Molalla (population 8,100) has been evacuated as a precaution.  Molalla is at least fifteen miles south of here.  In between is the Willamette river (pronounced wil-LAM-mit), which is about six hundred feet wide at that point.  Even if the fire reached the river and managed to cross it, it would need to burn through several miles of suburbia before it got to me -- which is possible (those suburbs are full of old-growth trees), but I assume a lot of resources would be thrown into protecting an area inhabited by tens of thousands of people.

For several days our area (and most of Portland) has been afflicted with smoke, which can often be smelled strongly outdoors, and sometimes even indoors with windows closed.  The sky is so hazy that the light filtering through the window-blinds is distinctly reddish (the first time I noticed this I vaguely wondered if I'd been transported to Hell, which I wouldn't actually have too much of a problem with if they'd brought the entire apartment along and my internet still worked).  This is a nuisance but nothing like the threat of the actual fires.

Those fires have certainly done a lot of damage elsewhere in the state.  About 900,000 acres have burned, compared with 500,000 for all of 2019.  The worst destruction has been in the small towns of Talent and Phoenix (devastated), where about two thousand people have been left homeless.  Those places are in the Medford-Ashland area almost two hundred miles from here.

The feds have approved emergency aid.  For a fire, I assume Trump will not come here and throw paper towels at us.  Maybe he'll send rakes.  Next week we're supposed to get lower temperatures and a little rain, which I hope will help.  The worst of the summer heat here normally tends to subside by mid-September, though in the last few years it has sometimes persisted longer.  We'll see.

[Image at top:  fire near Lionshead peak, about seventy miles southeast of here]