Holiday Forest Fire Part II

The Holiday fire continued to burn for several weeks. My husband, Eric, continued to work on the fire as a timber faller cutting down hazardous trees and freeing up roadways for the first responders. 

He was still working long 12 hour days. He worked 10 long days like that and finally got a day off, but then hit it again. We finally got our power back after a few days, which was a big relief. 

A mutual respect grew between the cutters and the firefighters and Eric became good friends with them. He sent this picture next to the fire truck to our family group text so the grandchildren could see. 

The air quality was still terrible in our valley. 

I went into the office and took these pictures at 11:00 in the morning. 

My car even had ash on it, which made me so sad thinking about all the people who lost their homes and all the beautiful trees in the forest that we lost and all of the animals who lost their home as well. 

His buddy took these pictures of him cutting this big old growth that had burned. 

He does such dangerous work and he's very skilled at what he does. I am so very proud of him and I am so thankful to God for keeping him safe all of these years. 

Eric found out that a man who works for the timber company he contracts with lost his entire home to the fire. We quickly got into action and borrowed a trailer from another friend who said they could use it as long as they needed it. We put it on our property where they would at least have a place to stay. 

I could not even imagine being in their shoes. I was so happy we could help them out, but just heartbroken for them. I wanted to make them as comfortable as they could be. 

There wasn't much I could do, so I just loved on them with a good homemade meal every night. I made comfort food, such as taco salad, meat loaf, chicken and rice, spaghetti etc. I also baked desserts like brownies, cookies, cakes, etc. 

They are such a nice family and we had lovely conversations at night. The dad and son continued to work and the mom filled her days with errands with the insurance company, bank, contractor, filing for fire relief, etc. They lost everything, but their detached garage/shop. 

Praise God, it finally rained!

The air quality went from this where you could only see out to about a half a mile....

....to this, where I could now see those mountains which are about 3 miles away. Our friends were finally able to go up to their place and see the damage and go through some of the rubble. We prayed together before they left as we knew this was going to be very emotional for them. 

When they got back, she told me that she cried of course, but she felt such a peace when she found her baby Jesus from their nativity set, it really comforted her and she remembered that God is in control and He would never leave or forsake them. They received good news from a friend who lives up river who has a mother-in-law cottage they can live in for a year while they build. This is perfect temporary living situation for them. They also got their building permit, we found out they were the first ones from the fire to get one. 

After about 3 weeks, my husband quit working for Oregon Department of Forestry. All the firemen up there wanted to take a group picture in front of the bridge. This picture went viral because it is so iconic with all of the hard working fire fighters with the historic bridge that they helped save. Eric is the guy with yellow hardhat standing on the far right leaning on the rail. I am so thankful for all of these hard working men and women. I am thankful the fire is finally contained.