Posts from chester7777 in thread „Our Retirement Home In Oregon“

I returned late last night from a quick trip up to Oregon. (In case there is any confusion among our friends overseas, Oregon is on the west coast of the US, north of California, and New Orleans is in the state of Louisiana, which is on the Gulf of Mexico in the southeastern part of the United States.)

Southern Oregon, where our property is located, is approximately 400 miles north of where we live in the Santa Cruz area on the Central California coast. It takes about eight hours to drive up there (this is without kids in the car :uhuh2: ). When I arrived up there, with two friends who had come with me, at first the forest fire area appeared very bleak and desolate, like what I would imagine a moonscape would be like. Apparently the fire had covered about 1800 acres, and burned 6 houses and several outbuildings, my home being one of the six. As I drove around the perimeter of the fire, to our driveway, the evidence of the fire was not seen as the trees there were green as usual, and as I continued up the long driveway (about a quarter of a mile), it was the beautiful green forest that I remembered. As I came around the last bend, all that changed suddenly and there was the burned out foundation of what had originally been a two story home. The fire had come in the back way, down from the ridge, almost like a finger, and had torched our house, and then stopped. When I looked at the fire map supplied by the Department of Forestry, I could see that our property was at the far reach of the territory covered by the fire, approximately two miles from the origin. The damage was done in a little over three hours from the start.

Fortunately, we had fire insurance and I met with the adjuster yesterday, and it sounds like we should be covered OK, although I haven't seen the check yet . So hopefully, everything will work out for the good . Another positive note - I had three forty-foot truck trailers on the property, as storage containers, and all of them got through without so much as a scratch. Of course, the best news is that there was no loss of human life as a result of the fire, and the property loss was minimal, all things considered.

I didn't have a chance to check in with Fred Krausse this trip, but I expect to be going back up there in a few weeks and hope to at that time.

Thank you all for your concern, kind thoughts, and prayers. This is certainly nowhere near as serious as the problems on the Gulf Coast - may all involved there be in our prayers.

Chester

Thanks, all of you, for your kinds thoughts and prayers!

We just found out another sad part of this fire - Fred Krausse, who I may have mentioned previously, was a good friend of the Duke's and had a small museum next to his home up in Selma, Oregon. That museum was primarily logging-oriented, but he had several things that John Wayne had given him. The museum was one of the first structures destroyed by the same forest fire that ultimately burned down our place. I haven't talked to Fred since the fire, so hopefully his John Wayne memorabilia was able to be saved, but with the speed with which the fire initially spread, I have my doubts. In any case, I will be going up to Oregon this coming weekend and I will try to find out as much as I can.

Chester

Well, we got the word yesterday afternoon, from a friend who lives in the area of our retirement home up in Oregon. All that's left standing is the chimney.

Thankfully, the house was unoccupied and insured. Hopefully, the insurance company will come through and not find some little loophole through which to yank our claim .

The most important thing is that there was no loss of life - structures and stuff can be replaced.

Thanks to all of you who have expressed your concern and kind thoughts.

Chester