Chetco Bar Fire of 2017

At Alfred A. Loeb State Park

Last year we stayed at Loeb State Park from July 24th through July 30th.  Little did we know that a MONSTER was in the woods not too far away, a small little fire which started by lightning on July 12th.  By the 15th it had burned 45 acres…by the 20th it had burned 300 acres, and there was no word about it in the news because of its isolated area, it would eventually burn out.  By August 2nd, while we were in Gold Beach just 28 miles north of Brookings, the fire started to worry the folks in charge, it was now 2,900 acres with a heat wave coming on.  By August 7th we were at Huntley Park just 7 miles east of Gold Beach for a two week stay.  By the time we left on the morning of the 22nd, Alfred Loeb State Park was shut down due to the fire, and the fire was heading north towards Gold Beach and Huntley Park.  We were going to go back to Loeb after leaving Huntley, but instead we left Oregon to get away from the fire.  THANK GOODNESS the fire never reached Loeb, Brookings, Huntley or Gold Beach…but it did damage over 191,000 acres!  Just think, one pass over with by a plane with fire retardant would have ended it on July 13th….

Wanting to see some of the fire area, I drove up the North Bank Chetco River Road beyond Loeb State Park where we are staying.  About 3 miles up you come to the National Forest Area sign, a “Low Fire Danger” sign for today (that’s good), and then the first sign of fire…a yellow warning sign announcing that you are entering a burned area, must stay on roads and trails.

  

There are a number of National Forest River Access areas up here, the closest to Loeb is Miller Bar.  All of these have a camping fee of $10, $5 with senior pass, and for up to 14 days.  The only drawback…I had no phone and I am sure no Internet service at all.  Miller Bar only had two trailers today, and what looked like two or three tent campers.

   

Shortly after Miller Bar I could see a few signs of the fire.

 

At Nook Bar the fire had burnt the trees as you enter, and they obviously have a new sign up…but down by the river one could hardly tell there had been a fire.

And just a bit further along the road you can see some burned spots, and other nice pristine spots…it is a lovely river, that is for sure.

    

At Redwood Bar the devastation is much more intense.  A nearby National Forest Park Campground is shutdown, burned out with just a few picnic benches showing where camping spots once stood.  The funny thing…there were more people here, with a view of burned trees, than at the other two river spots.  Probably six trailers, a number of tents, and a number of day use folks.  Who would have imagined…

Other than a splash of color, much of the area looks like the brown area in this shot above.  Like this and worse from here to 20 miles to the north…it was a devastating fire.

We left Keller Park at 8:15, went to the Brookings Rest Area north of town to empty our tanks, and arrived at Loeb State park by 10 am.  We could have got into the site we had last year, #9…but chose site #10 next to it instead.  We are level, no use of levelers at all, and have electricity and water.  Paid for 5 nights, but plan to stay for 12 and will pay the difference on Tuesday.  Price is $24 this year, up $2 from last year.  As of 4:00, there were only one or two sites still available…we had our pick of around a dozen sites.  Getting here around 10 or 11 is recommended if you want a site as there are no reservations here.  People who think they are going to get into Harris Beach State Park north of Brookings without a reservation seem to end up at Loeb…Harris does take reservations, and the sign along the highway said they were full.  So here we sit, temps around 75 degrees with a slight wind – just suffering our butts off….life is good.