Thursday Aug 31 - Olympia, WA

Yesterday’s excitement took place after 10:00 p.m. Driving back to the campground, we saw a large column of smoke – with a reddish tinge. Believing that it was a manufacturing plant operation of some kind, we didn’t think much about it. But as we got closer and closer we realized it was a) a major fire and b) it was very, very close to the campground.

Threading our way through the fire trucks and hoses to get to our campground, we knew we would be in for a long night. Apparently, someone has been dumping their logging scraps in a pile for a long time and it ignited through spontaneous combustion. The fact that there is a fire district dispute over who responds didn’t help. We were told that the fire had started at about 6:30 but the first fire truck didn’t arrive for more than 30 minutes – by that time, the fire had made its way to the “large” pile of wood and was burning furiously.

Our concern was of course, that the fire and/or sparks would jump the fire road and ignite the campground forest area. Naturally, a large crowd was out watching the fire and fire fighters. I asked a couple of firemen if we should evacuate. At first they said, “No. We feel we have it contained. We’ve done this before.” About a half-hour later, they said, “We’re thinking of asking for evacuation.”

Knowing that it would be almost impossible to get the motor-home out through the maze of fire trucks, we loaded all the “important” stuff into our rental car and started to evacuate on our own. By the time we got to the campground entrance, the fire fighters were saying it wasn’t necessary, but stand by – they’d know for sure in 30 minutes.

About an hour later, a young lady fire fighter came around to reassure everyone that they had it under control, the relative humidity was rising (to alleviate the dryness), there was no wind, and they (the fire fighters) would remain in the campground all night to make sure the fire didn’t flare up again.

This morning the fire was still smoking; probably will go on for several more days. Fortunately, they were able to keep it from spreading – not only from the campground, but several surrounding piles of wood, a mini-storage lot, and several businesses. It could have gotten really nasty. We were lucky. (By the way, when I say “piles of wood”, I’m not talking about your back-yard trash pile. These piles are taller than a two-story building!)

The photo was taken this a.m. of the smoking remains. You can see that the access road isn’t very wide. The flames (last night) were jumping higher than the trees – probably a couple of hundred feet into the air. That fact, coupled with the accompanying sparks, made everyone very nervous. Having a calm evening with regard to the wind was the main saving factor.

In addition to the fire, we saw a double trailer semi flipped on its side on the South bound on-ramp to I-5. And we heard that a Mercedes doing over 120 mph had rear-ended a bread truck on the I-5. Must be something in the water?