Almeda Fire Memoirs - by Cathy
Including the Adventures of Rocky the Great Pyrenees
note: this article appears on pages six and seven of the March 2021 issue of the Talent Historical Society Newsletter, The Historicale
I live in South Talent Oregon on a small farm with sheep and chickens with my husband, Richard. On Sept 8, 2020, I woke up in the middle of the night to high winds. We have a lot of walnut trees on our property and in this season, walnuts are dropping from the trees when they are ripe. The high winds that night caused walnuts to pound down on our roof. There were so many and constant. It was way beyond anything I’d ever experienced before.
Late morning that same day the winds were still blowing very hard, and I got a fire alert on my phone that was located in Ashland just south of here. Evacuations were being ordered there. My husband, Richard, and I had lunch and went to a neighbor’s house that is up the hill from us and we could watch the fire advance. It was headed in our direction. I went home and started packing. Shortly after, I got a text message from Dana, my husband’s cousin who also lives in Talent. He and his partner, Michele were evacuating. I was shocked!! I had heard NOTHING about the fire being in Talent. We live on the south end of town, so I was very concerned.
I texted Richard and told him to come home immediately. Once he came home, we made the decision to leave. Richard went outside and turned on our water cannon so it was spraying the roof of our house. We finished packing. We packed up the car with our things, our two small dogs and dog food. We got a call from a neighbor who was stuck in Ashland. Her mother was in their house alone and they asked us to get her and take her out. We said sure. As we were heading out, she called again and told us she had called the sheriff and they said they would get her. So, we left. It was very clear right away that it was going to take a long time to get out of town. We were in a long line of cars trying to go the same way we were. About 10 minutes later that same neighbor called us to tell us that the sheriff hadn’t picked up her mother yet.
Richard turned around to head back home, but the police stopped him. Richard said he needed to get to this elderly woman who hadn’t gotten picked up yet. The police pointed out some police cars up the road and said they were on their way. We turned back and started out again. We spent an hour going about 2 miles. Finally, Richard turned off the highway on a back road and we headed to Medford where his brother Steve lives. We spent that afternoon and evening with Steve and Kate. We watched the news about the fire, and they graciously served us dinner. About 8PM we heard that they were then at evacuation level 2. That means they should be packed and ready to go. Level 3 means go. It became clear to us that we needed to leave. We decided to drive back home to see if it was still there. We didn’t know where else we could go. We also knew that the leading edge of the fire was past us. In retrospect, I don’t think I would do that again, but we wanted to see if we still had a house.
We drove the back roads through Medford and Phoenix towards Talent to avoid traffic and the fires on the main roads. When we approached Phoenix, we could see the flames in town. The sky was red. It was awful. Then we got to Talent and turned up the main road, Talent Avenue. The left side of Talent Ave for about 1/2 mile was in flames. It was a nightmare. We continued up the street and got to a place where there were no flames and finally reached home.
There was a car blocking our driveway. Someone had pulled off the road into our driveway crosswise. Then they left their car presumably to enter our property. Since looting is a common occurrence in these situations, I was scared. We drove on the grass around the car and entered our property. It was clear right away that we had no power. I went into the house, and Richard started walking around looking for the owner of the car. By the time I left the house with a flashlight, Richard had found the man who had expensive looking camera equipment around his neck. He was apparently using our property to get pictures of the fire. I was pretty shocked.
Before he left, he saw one of our big field dogs, Lilly walking around our yard. She and Rocky live outside in the field protecting our sheep from predators. The breed is Great Pyrenees. They are very good at protecting our sheep and also escaping the field. Since we had no power, our invisible fence system was down, and she “escaped”. Little did we suspect at that point that she wasn’t the only one. We put her in the barn until we could get some power to the fence system.
We went to bed with our cell phones close by. The next morning, we still had no power. That meant we also had no water (we are on a well with a pump) and no internet. Our first priorities were our refrigerator and freezers. Richard went back to his brother’s house in Medford and borrowed a generator. He started it up and ran extension cords into the house and barn to keep them going. Over the course of the next 5 days, we learned how to take sponge baths with very little water, flush toilets with buckets of water from the irrigation canal and start up our stove with matches. We also adjusted our sleep habits to go to bed when it got dark and wake when it got light. Our nephew filled a large tank with clean water for us and the rest of the neighbors. Another neighbor helped us get more gas for the generator. It was so wonderful the way our community helped each other out.
It took us a day to notice that one of our field dogs was missing. Since our invisible fence was down (due to the power outage) we figured it was a strong possibility that Rocky had escaped. Both our dogs are escape artists. They love to go wandering. They have no fear of climbing a fence if they are allowed to get close to it. I had long ago deleted the Facebook app from my phone, but I decided it was time to put it back on since I couldn’t use my computer. I had to get onto one of the lost pet’s pages and put in an ad to look for him. I started that process and found that it basically went “viral” all across the state. Two of my nieces in the Portland area were cross posting my ad in other sites. I am so grateful for their help. without it we might not have found him.
I got several pictures from folks, but one caught my eye. A vet in Portland sent me a picture of a dog whose head was clearly Rocky’s, but he had been shaved. I was not clear it was Rocky, so the vet also sent me a picture of his license tag (Yes, he had that, and our phone number written on his collar). The license number clearly matched our records. It was amazing to me that our dog was now 300 miles away with no hair. I couldn’t comprehend that. I notified my nephew Travis that our dog was now in Portland. He said he was going to drive there to fetch him with his daughter.
Rocky lives outside. He has long thick hair which requires grooming several times a year. He is constantly dirty and full of mats. Frankly, he looks like a dog who is not cared for. Which is really incorrect but that's the way it is. Appearances can be deceiving. We didn't have the whole story on why he was brought up to Portland. I now knew that is the case though. He already escaped the original person and someone else found him and took him to a clinic in Portland where the pictures were taken.
Once Rocky left the clinic, the first rescuer saw the second rescuer and Rocky and claimed the dog belonged to him. Rocky was turned over to him at that point. My understanding is that the first rescuer took Rocky up to Portland to purchase a truck. After that was accomplished, he headed home to southern Oregon. Meanwhile Travis was still headed to Portland.
Further conversations with the vet put me in contact with the second rescuer. She felt bad about handing over Rocky, but I felt she really had no reason to doubt him. He apparently felt that Rocky had been abandoned in the fire and that he would now take him as his own. He had decided to shave Rocky to clean him up.
Travis reached Portland and was doing investigations of his own. He got the name of the man who originally found Rocky, and he also got the name of the person who sold him the truck. He called the man who rescued Rocky. Travis found him at work in Grants Pass. He also found out that he lives on the same road we do. The man promised Travis that he would return Rocky when he got home from work that evening. Richard and I went to his house at the time when he was expected home and waited and waited. Finally, we called Travis and found that his new truck had broken down on his way home from work. Travis said he would stop by later that evening to pick up Rocky.
The next morning, we found Rocky in the barn with Lilly. She had stopped crying. I’ve since purchased a jacket for Rocky to help keep him warm this winter. I hope he doesn’t tear it up!! We are very happy to have Rocky home with us again.
The storm left a huge mess in our yard. We have many trees and they had shed many leaves, walnuts, and branches in our yard. The grass was totally covered in many places. Clean up was complicated by the incredibly bad air quality. I could not go outside without a mask as it hurt my throat. Our air quality was terrible from the California fires It took about 2 weeks for that to clear up so we could go outside again. We still have a huge burn pile to take care of this spring.
It took 5 days to get our power back. We were afraid to leave home as the police weren’t letting anyone back in. They are trying to reduce looting and reduce exposure to toxic materials from burning structures.
I am so grateful for our community and how we all helped each other out that week.
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