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Please consider helping farmers/ ranchers in the west who are losing everything due to the wildfires. Gloria can fill you in on what has occurred. There are numerous FB pages where you can lend whatever help you can.

 

Wish us luck.

 

Your friend

T

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Please consider helping farmers/ ranchers in the west who are losing everything due to the wildfires. Gloria can fill you in on what has occurred. There are numerous FB pages where you can lend whatever help you can.

 

Wish us luck.

 

Your friend

T

Tea,

Can you post links? Preferably one(s) that have a PAYPAL option. I don't go to Facebook normally and don't know where to look.

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I'll try to get info up on some reputable donation sites. We are 50 miles west of the Ross Lake fires on Hwy 20, which is the highway that is now closed between the Ross Lake and the Methow Valley fires.

 

The smoke at 50 miles away is incredible, I can only imagine what it's like closer. Here is a view of our foothills today (or where they should be).

post-9529-0-11803100-1440384983_thumb.jpg

 

Here is the same view on a normal day.

post-9529-0-91008600-1440384996_thumb.jpg

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I'm attaching a couple photos of Tea's world. One is the smoke at their place this morning. The other is a night of evacuation at a friend's place. Tea is back home again but only to prepare for more evacuations. Her horses are out, the seed stock of her sheep are ready and they're trying to figure out moving cows. It's so hard when one only has a trailer and a pickup truck and there is no safe place nearby. Her Pete and brother Cam have been of invaluable help, and she says the community there is amazing. They are after all in this together.

But she's only been able to tell a fraction of what she's seen or heard: people opening gates and turning livestock loose to the mercy of nature, and others parking tractors, vehicles and farm equipment out in the middle of empty fields, hoping that will save them if or when the fires come. Every change of wind, every gust, every breeze carries peril with it, as embers fly and spot fires burst into flame. So long as people can stamp them out, they survive, but I can only imagine how exhausting a dance that is. Firefighters are on the line all over the west and in a number of places the National Guard is out, while Black Hawk Helicopters are flying to help out traditional firefighter aircraft. But they can't fly if they can't see and they just can't be everywhere at once. There simply aren't enough humans to combat a Hydra like this.

The news is not doing this justice. The West is on fire. Blazes are chewing up the landscape in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and California. In the Pacific Northwest alone, the damage is now estimated at 900,000 acres burned. Nine hundred thousand acres. 1,400 square miles. Washington has been declared a disaster area. Three firefighters are dead, their vehicle overrun by flames when trying to escape. I believe I heard that a couple others are injured. Resources are stretched so entirely thin that they simply can't put enough boots on the ground. Now the Canadians, Aussies and Kiwis are coming with their planes and men and skills. God bless 'em. Officials are even resorting to the unimaginable - pleading for help from the general public. If you can man a shovel, drag a hose or operate a backhoe, they want you. On the news last night I heard them say some 3,000 civilian volunteers are stepping up.

It's a war out there. It's a battlefield that most of us can't comprehend. Even the little disasters are everything to someone. Maybe it was only a 5 acre spot fire - but it consumed someone's entire winter store of hay. Maybe it's only a 500 acre blaze, but it's heading straight for someone's home and livestock and livelihood. Many out there are saying that it's past time to rethink our relationship with wilderness use, because clearly restricting the human interface doesn't work. Log it, graze it or watch it burn is the mantra they're saying now.

But politics aside, these people need help. They need places to go, places to take their animals and trailers to haul their animals in.

I'm not sure I have all the links Tea wanted me to gather, but here is a collection of stuff, including some I rounded up on my own:

News and Info:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kettle-Complex-Fire/502871306544195
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=504962923001700&id=502871306544195
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1447028895568855/
https://www.facebook.com/7NewsMelbourne/videos/10153594398824301/

Map: http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4562/
Volunteers and help needed:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1196404333708011/

Donations and help:
http://www.redcross.org/cm/khq-pub
http://www.thenewsguard.com/news/oregon-wildfires-how-you-can-help-victims/article_35355db4-4818-11e5-a3fa-6ba8bb0475ee.html
http://nwcuf.org/oregon-washington-wildfire-relief/
http://idrange.org/_blog/News/post/emergency-wildfire-relief-for-owyhee-ranchers/
http://www.ktvb.com/story/news/local/idaho/2015/08/14/resources-idaho-wildfire-idaho-help-soda-fire-lawyer-complex/31738987/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1447028895568855/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/882621248485315/

Kudos:
https://www.facebook.com/kady.pasley/videos/1133023443375678/

Nobody can do everything ... but many can do something. If anyone is or knows someone in Eastern Washington or anywhere in the fire areas who can take in horses, sheep, chickens or whatever, please consider volunteering to help. Plus Googling and contacting local farm bureaus, cattleman's associations and animal shelters may be a good way to find out what aid they might be needing.

This whole post probably looks daunting and overwhelming, but that's pretty much how it is. I'm 12 to 14 hours away in Nevada and can only pray and hope. God be with them all.

~ Gloria

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Fabulous. Thanks so much for doing that. I'm trying, but at my distance it's hard to know where to look.

~ Gloria

 

I'll try to get info up on some reputable donation sites. We are 50 miles west of the Ross Lake fires on Hwy 20, which is the highway that is now closed between the Ross Lake and the Methow Valley fires.

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T has evacuated today....to a friends house that she spent most of last week in Diamond Lake, Wa....she went back in Sat and now out again. I know (and she will not ask) but need supplies for her stock.... hay, grain, dog food etc.......I can ask her how to donate to her if you want me too....she just got a ton of hay for her cattle and horses.

 

I would think paypal would be the best option so she can buy what she needs directly.

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Here is a link to the state info site. They are doing a pretty good job of keeping info current.

 

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/state/49/

 

This is a link to the WA Emergency Management fb page

 

https://www.facebook.com/WashEMD

 

The expected containment for many of these fires is October...it's hard to even wrap my head around that.

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T, I'm not able to help with donations at this point, but prayers that you all stay safe, as well as your property you had to leave behind.

 

Very smokey down here in Centerville, WA too from the Cougar Creek fire. Very, very smokey at times. Thankfully, it is usually windy here too and when it is, that helps some. We aren't supposed to even be outside though with all the animals THAT is obviously not happening.

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Howdy all ~

I've heard from Tea today and they are doing okay. A couple of the dogs are going in to the vet for smoke-related illness, but they'll be returning home soon. Here's what she had to say:

"We are still level 2, and trying to work out when to go back, stock that was evac will stay out a while longer, thxs to everyone for thinking of us. Level 1 is fire in your close proximity, Level two is be ready to leave at a moments notice. Level 3 is leave right now don't take anything. There are bad people looting so we want to watch, also precious time we should be getting ready for winter has been lost."

Their neighborhood has been safe from looters so far, mainly due to the farmers and ranchers being armed and some of them actively patrolling the area. But it remains a concern the longer folks are away from home ...

Anyhow, just wanted to keep folks posted. :)

~ Gloria

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My brother is in Spokane and my niece is at Diamond Lake. George called a couple of days ago. The fires and smoke are still bad. I worry. He said the smoke was so bad they couldn't see across the river Valley and the Spokane river was so low you could walk across it. It's still bad.

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I am home, dogs and seed stock sheep are here with me, and Darlin Pete. The fires are still burning but now fireline is in and 800 people fighting it. So I am encouraged. RAIN PLEASE!

 

Our house is standing due to mercy of the winds. And has not been looted. Thank you for support, prayers and just notes of encouragement.

 

Worst fire season WA state has ever had.

 

Hugs

 

T

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Tea, I am so glad to hear this news. I have had a house fire. It is devastating in so many ways. Yet I cannot imagine how hard it would be to have to evacuate your home, leave everything, and not know what, if anything, you would come back to when it was over. I am praying for rain so that you do not have to leave again.

And wishing for a special kind of hell for the scum who would loot evacuated homes.

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