devastating

I only had a back up camera and lens (my primaries are in CA being fitted for my underwater camera housing; won't be back till end of the week). The irony ...
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I only had a back up camera and lens (my primaries are in CA being fitted for my underwater camera housing; won't be back till end of the week). The irony of protecting my livelihood from water, while my "backyard" burns out of control...

But we drove out the WA side of the Columbia River Gorge to see the fire last night, my husband and I. I had to see it.

I have never been so close to a wildfire. The Columbia almost wasn't wide enough for comfort. The Gorge winds are howling and incredibly hot. You can hear the fire crackling over the wind. You can see fireballs soar into the sky, which is glowing red. It smells like you are in the middle of a campfire. You can watch the fire crawling up craggy rocks, destroying any living thing. It was like standing inside a convection oven, so hot, so windy, so loud, so frightening.

It is amazing and terrifying and indescribably tragically beautiful. The Gorge, usually a damp, green, magical place is utterly unrecognizable. Because of people.

If you've visited us here, I have dragged you to the Gorge at least once. It was one of the first places in Oregon to hold a piece of my heart. The moss, blackberries, the impossibly old trees, the wonder of it all. The smell of the mist at the base of a waterfall, the roar...

I am devastated. I am worried about the people who live in the area and I suppose we are all lucky that despite being popular it's not very populated (though the evacuations are certainly awful and I sincerely hope everyone, and their pets, makes it out ok). The Gorge is a special place - and I fear it's going to be very, very different for a long time to come. As I watched it burning, fire crawling and soaring, I cried for all of us.

Maybe it seems silly to worry about a chunk of land here in Oregon, with wildfires burning throughout the west, with the hurricane devastation in Texas and Irma on its way to the southeast US. And the fears of North Korea.

There's a lot of shit out there right now in this world. But I can put my hand out and catch ashes of a place I love in my palm. And that is so difficult to wrap my heart and head around.
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