Wildfires in Oregon

When I write this post, there are 38 active wildfires in Oregon, and around 900,000 acres have disappeared under the fire in the last three days. A considerable part of the Cascade Range is burning down.

Last Sunday, we hiked the Tamolitch Trail to the Blue Pool. I assume all that area is gone now. We drove by the Santiam Pass: gone. Some weeks ago, we went to Salem and crossed the beautiful Detroit. The town is not there anymore. More than half a million people are in evacuation zones, which is more than 10% of the Oregon population (around 10% of that total were already evacuated). Awful.

The numbers are devastating, but I didn’t understand the burned acres’ magnitude, so I thought I’d convert it to square km: 3,642.17. That makes 60.35 km (37.5 miles) for each side of the square. Then, as I still know Catalonia a lot better than Oregon, I decided to check what 3.642.17 sq km would look in that area. Here is the result:

I can’t imagine all that area burned down. Every single tree and structure, gone. From Barcelona to Vic to almost Solsona to some point between Igualada and Valls. However, this is what is happening in Oregon (and it will keep going until… I don’t know).

In Bend, we are well so far. We had a lot of smoke on Monday, and the forecast says it will be back even worse tomorrow and for the rest of the weekend. But for now, no fires. I am keeping my fingers crossed so that doesn’t change.