Good News - WE ARE HOME!!!!! The neighorhood looks great! Its almost hard to tell anything happened at all. SO thankful..

We unloaded the truck and trailer etc. At 5pm we got notice that sis23 (where we live) has been downgraded to level2!!!! Very very very good news.  whoohoo! Our neighborhood and the house look amazing. 

Also wanted to share how thankful and fortunate we feel. Especially thinking about the loss and devastation from the McKenzie, Santiam, Paradise, Lahaina, Weed, Southern CA and others experienced. It was scary, upsetting and concerning but we are ok. So many others have not been.
There are still some updates to come on the blog is you enjoy seeing photos and videos… we will continue to keep it updated for now as we sift through everything. And thanks to all who have reached out, fed us, kept us busy, offered produce, places to stay. We have an amazing community - especially our music community.

We dashed back to the house for a few minutes this afternoon to get our cameras back up..
lots of neighbors have gone home even though we are still technically at Level 3…
currently “mop up” operations are happening where they monitor hots spots. It’s amazing to see the process in action. Some videos below of what was going on on our street. The helicopter looks for hot spots or smoke and radios down to the ground crew to check out.

we were happy to just get out of the way and let them do their thing! Still I think we will go home in the morning.

Although they lowered some evacuation levels yesterday, we are very much at level 3. Our grid is SIS23. So we will be at the RV Park in Redmond tonight. Our wonderful neighbors have decided to head back to their house today. My guess is that it will be several days before the level 3 evacuations are lifted. But who knows. We will see how it goes for Steve and Michelle and decide whether we will try to head home tomorrow. The water at home is very not drinkable- so that is an added complication that’s not too difficult to manage.

We had 2 cameras go down yesterday- so we are going to head up and check out what’s happening. There was a lot of activity all up and down the street doing mop up operations. This means they have air patrols flying the perimeter of the fire line to make sure no hot spots flare up around homes. It’s a little disconcerting with planes helicopters, fire trucks, tankers rolling constantly up and down the street but it’s also very comforting to see how serious the response she has been.

the house looked good - we did more camera futzing and got everything back online. We went to lunch at Three Creeks because they are offering 50% off for all fire personnel and evacuees. Some pictures below show what it was like at the house. The neighborhood is amazingly intact - unless you are looking down into the canyon, you might not guess we are right in the middle of a fire. Well done firefighters!!!

Today we are still at the Fairgrounds evaluating whether we think it’s safe to go home. We want to be home but also want to stay out of the way and not be a problem for firefighters

This is a vid from
yesterday afternoon driving down our road when we went back to the house to get my car. It was very hectic up there in a good way - lots of activity and aircraft buzzing around. The pink stuff is where they drop retardant from a plane. They don’t do that unless there is a pretty serious risk to structures

you get a sense of activity over the past 26 hours or so. If you watch to the end, you see us pull into our driveway and the house

This is our first morning without obvious bad news. The power is on, cameras are working and there is no sign of anything bad happening. Late afternoon was particularly scary because from our cameras pointed NW there was a new pretty active plume of smoke rising very close to our house. This is where all the helicopter activity was - the really good news is the plume was gone by early evening and it is not back this morning. Things look very clear to the NW of our house - which is the area we are most concerned about. Now we need to find ways to distract ourselves today.


Last night about 730 we had a knock on the door and it was a lady (Cassie) who came to bring us food. It was just about the nicest thing anyone has ever done - the community support has been very heartwarming. We took a photo with her you can see in the slide show.

In the evening, we did some music therapy at Silvermoon Brewing - an invitational jam that happens every Monday night. That was a good distraction. We also were invited to dinner by two good friends from our incredible music community here. We are so thankful for all the support.

Suz was obsessively peeking at a camera around 5Am when the power went off again. So disturbing. We spent time updating people - the interest and supportive responses from friends, family and the central Oregon community has been astonishing. Suz and I are both very humbled by all the people who have reached out and offered housing storage and help of any kind night or day. We decided to do some therapy shopping in Bend. We ended up eating lunch in Sisters and eventually decided to see if we could get up to the house to get a few more things, reposition and add solar charging to cameras, and do a bit more defensible space adjustment.

Suz wrote a very nice update for today:

It’s been a roller coaster! we thought we were in the clear from the fire raging down the canyon on the other side of our street.. But there was southerly progress of the fire on the west side of our property. We had a scare at about 5:30 am when the power went off again which could potentially mean the house is gone, but it came on a couple hours later
We made the decision to try and get to the house to see if we could get more stuff as well as my car… we were let through the road block (with ID required). Our street was surreal with air retardant dropped on some of the houses and a few small spots that burned but so far no homes lost. Whew! We still have danger from the west - there is so much activity down there - helicopters, planes and a constant flow of fire vehicles.. lots of embers on and around the house

We took the time to do a bit more defensible space protection like moving all the plastic stuff, chairs etc away from the house. We also attached solar chargers to the security cams so they won’t
Lose charge. Now as long as we have power we can monitor the house on cameras. We got a few more valuables like uncle Bill’s guitar and some of my grandfathers original artwork.
We are feeling better about things now that we’ve been able to check things out but today is a pivotal day and I feel like it could go either way.

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The first video below shows a helicopter from our back yard - which is comforting and terrifying at the same time. The second video shows some fire crew activity at the confluence of Mountain View and Buffalo.

The power came on about 930 - and we could see on our cameras we still had a house. So that was good.  We did some therapy shopping ( I bought new overalls because I forgot my old work ones at home...).  We spent most of the day worrying and trying not to stare at our cameras since the battery on our driveway camera was low.  

Mid day I was talking to Rob Newsom on the phone and Suz was obsessively staring at our driveway camera.  She began a string of explatives I shouldn't repeat here and she watched live as the trees on the canyon at house across from us erupted in flame - video below.  

M45 had a gig a Wildwood from 7-10 which was a nice distraction.  We had a great time at Wildwood.  

The fire grew to 3000 acres overnight- mostly straight to the south. Directly toward us. Not so good. By mid afternoon the the level 3 go now line was the end of the public rd- which is a long rock throw to the north of our house. But our zone was still at level 1.

Josh A arrived late Thursday night - M45 had a gig at Brasada Ranch Friday night from 5-7. With the level 3 line so close I called the Deschutes county sheriff for some guidance since we are so close to level 3 line. She said we should live our lives as level 1, and that they would go to level 2 before they go to level 3.

So we loaded up the sound system and instruments and went to Brasada arriving at 3PM. We set up the sound system and did all our thing. Around 345 Suz gets a call from our neighbor Michelle who informs us the sheriff was just at our house and they want everyone to evacuate (for the record - Suz wanted to cancel the gig and evacuate at 1pm- she was right).

We were 20 seconds into listening to the Boxcars “Jeffreys Hell” and had to tear down the system pack up and head back to evacuate. Josh A drove home, Jered had just arrived in Redmond and now had additional quality time with his aunt. The pic below is what we saw driving north on our Rd- Mountain View Rd.

We had a significant sense of urgency when we arrived home. Fortunately we had done a bunch of evacuation prep in the morning. We loaded cats and connected the trailer etc quickly grabbing some limited stuff and headed to the RV park at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond.

the power went out shortly after we left - so our outside cameras do not work. That was very troubling.
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We noticed some smoke to the north when we went out to the back patio to eat some dinner at about 545 - apparently the fire started around 530. It looked like a pretty active fire but it was far away to the north and right on a road. Usually they get those put out very quickly so we were not very worried

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