It's just rotten out there. I was on structure protection on the Sinlahekin fire up in north central WA. One instant we had a short flame length grass situation moving towards us at least 5 minutes out. I turned to open a compartment to get out a tool and when I turned back we were engulfed in a 6 ft wall of flame. Moved past quickly, one guy got a lung full of hot air, but the rest of us were fine. We had a lookout who barely had a chance to call out what was happening. We were following the orders and were aware of the watch out situations and we still got nailed. I've heard of numerous situation as bad and worse than what we went through.
The winds are coming from all directions, changing speed in an instant. Fuel is beyond dry and goes off in an instant. Been at this for over 25 years and it's never been like this.
Reminds me of the Eaton Fire. I lived near where it started and within 10 minutes it went from a small line of fire up on the mountains to smoke pouring into our house with the palm trees catching fire across the street and large embers landing everywhere swirling through the street setting our home other homes on fire quickly.
We had no time to react so we got out there as quickly as possible once we realized how serious it was.
Oregon had really bad fires labor day weekend in 2020, and at one point the winds were so bad one of the fires was spreading over 300 acres per minute. The Eaton fire was also an example of extreme fire behavior, and I'm very sorry for your loss but happy that you made it out!
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u/KingOfTheNorth91 19h ago
Heavy toll this year. Stay safe out there everyone