Chetco Bar Fire Near Brookings, Oregon

Background

This past week I was headed up the coast of California and into Oregon for a much needed road trip. Also, as a bonus the Solar Eclipse was happening this week so that made the road trip even better! I traveled up along highway 1 through California and then turned onto highway 101 for the remainder of the trip.

Once I hit Crescent City the air quality became worse and worse. It was quite smokey and as I traveled North things weren't getting any better. The entire trip I was wondering where the big fire was. This area doesn't have great cell reception, so I opted not to bother looking on the internet.

A road trip side trip...

As I got into Brookings, Oregon everything changed. The sky got dark, ash started falling, and the air around me looked to be a yellow orange color. Continuing North everything was getting darker and darker. There became a point where I had to turn on my headlights as it was almost nighttime dark. It was a very eerie sureal feeling. Everything stood still...

This is when I decided to pull onto a side road that had a sign for an 'overlook' taking a slight side trip. The sky was insane showing so many colors that I wanted to get a better view.

The Chetco Bar Fire

Getting to the overlook was easy, but I wasn't expecting to see what I actually saw. The sky was so incredibly dark all around me with colors of grey, blue, purple, orange, red, and yellow. I haven't ever experienced anything like this in my life so I had to document the moment.

I later found out that this fire was the Chetco Bar Fire.

If you want to read a little more about the fire in general check it out here. You could also check it out here to get real time information from the .gov website.

Prayers

My heart goes out to each and everyone dealing with this fire whether that be the evacuated residents, the police, the local residents dealing with the horrendous smoke and ash, and the fire fighters working their tail off to get the monster stopped. You are all in my prayers.

Continuing

My adventuring continued on after this side trip, but that is for another day and another story.

Wishing you all nothing but amazing and safe adventures.

Bessie

P.S. All my photographs are available on my Photography Website Here.