09/07/2026
This is a long one.
Six years ago today, everything changed.
On September 6, 2020, a friend and I went backpacking. We had hiked into a small lake in the wilderness to go fishing, and we planned on staying a couple of days and hiking out on September 8th.
The weather forecast was calling for red flag warnings and high winds. It was already extremely smoky because of the other fires burning around Oregon, including what I believe was the Beachie Creek Fire near Detroit, although I’m not 100% sure that was the fire burning there at the time.
By mid-morning on September 7th, we decided we should probably cut the trip short and hike out. We got home that afternoon.
Blue River, where I live, was also extremely smoky, and the wind had started picking up.
I’m not very good with the exact timeframe of everything that happened after this. From what I remember, I was eating dinner when the power went out. I turned on the scanner on my phone, like I normally do when the power goes out, and checked Facebook for information about why the power was out or how long it might last.
I don’t remember how much time had passed or exactly what time it was, but a call came over the scanner about a possible fire near the Holiday Farm RV Park.
From that point on, the scanner became hectic.
Listening to the scanner, you could hear the fire was growing and then starting to move west quickly. Evacuation notices started going out, and it seemed like everything in Blue River went to Level 3: Get Out Now almost immediately.
Fire and police drove through town announcing that everyone needed to get out. The fire was coming.
I have a lot of family members who live up and down the McKenzie Valley, so we were already communicating and checking in with each other.
When I evacuated my property, it was me, my cat, and a friend. My friend was in his own vehicle with his dog. My plan was to go to my grandmother’s house, which wasn’t far away, to make sure she got out okay.
By then, the wind was really ripping and fiery ash was blowing around. Across the river from my grandmother’s house, the hillside was glowing red from what must have been another fire.
My grandmother had eight cats and two horses. Unfortunately, we were only able to gather a few of her cats. With everything happening so fast, all we could do for the horses was open the stalls and barn doors and hope they would find a way to safety.
Thankfully, both horses survived the fire without injuries. Her cats weren’t so fortunate. She lost most of them. In the middle of all the chaos, there simply wasn’t enough time to save them all.
We didn’t stay there long. The fire was moving fast, and it was getting closer.
We evacuated my grandmother’s and drove west down the river. There was a huge line of traffic heading out, with people evacuating from all along the valley. Everyone was trying to get west as quickly as possible, not really knowing what was happening or how much time we had.
We made a quick stop at one of my aunt’s houses in Ni**od, about 12 miles west of Blue River. It was on the drive there that we saw our first real flames. Everything before that had just been a glow.
The whole mountainside was on fire to our left as we drove through Finn Rock, along with spot fires along the highway.
My aunt and her family were already loading up and evacuating, so we continued west to Vida, where my sister lives.
We gathered up a few things and spent some time in Vida trying to get information and figure out what the current evacuation notices were. Everything was changing so quickly that it was hard to know where it was safe to go or how much farther we needed to get away from the fire.
Eventually, we continued west to my aunt’s in Walterville, where we hoped to stay the night.
By then, it was really late. By the time we were able to settle down enough to try to get some sleep, I’d guess it was around 3 or 4 a.m.
There were so many of us that we just slept wherever we could. I slept out in the grass.
As I was going to sleep, we could still see the glow of the fire on a distant hillside.
From Blue River to Walterville is something like 36 miles. That night, the fire traveled over 40 miles down the river in just a few short hours.
After very little sleep, Walterville went into an evacuation notice, and I had to evacuate again. We evacuated to Springfield.
I wasn’t able to return up the river for about a month.
The home I lived in. My grandmother’s home. My aunt and uncle’s home. My whole town. So many people I care about lost their homes.
I grew up in Blue River. The whole town burned, taking homes, businesses, and decades of memories with it. So much of what I knew growing up was gone in just a few hours.
The landscape was completely transformed.
The Holiday Farm Fire eventually burned 173,393 acres and destroyed 768 structures. One person lost their life in the fire.
When I left my house that night, I never thought my house would burn down, let alone that my whole community would be devastated.
Six years later, my community has rebuilt in many ways.
Many new homes have been rebuilt, but many have not. For some, rebuilding has been difficult because of the cost, permitting and land-use requirements, septic issues, and funding. Even so, there has been a lot of progress. We have a new library, a new fire house, a new clinic, and many new homes throughout the valley.
My community will forever be changed, but we are strong. McKenzie River Strong, as some would say. Life goes on.
It’s still beautiful here, just in a different way.
I love where I live, and I feel fortunate to call the McKenzie River my home.
These images are of Blue River after flight restrictions were lifted for the Holiday Farm Fire.
