Catastrophe Tourism: The Oregon Fires of 2020
November 15, 2020

In September of 2020, Oregon experienced it's worst fire season so far. What made it particularly devastating was the fires came into the western part of the state, where the population centers are.

This is an unfiltered picture of how things looked at the height of the smoke being blown into Salem. It didn't get light enough to see until just before noon and it went dark well before sunset.

This is a picture of the sun at 2pm in the afternoon.

A couple days later, still smokey, but at least we could see.

Pic of the sun, again at 2pm.

It's now mid-November and we decided to take a little drive and see what nature had done. We could see fire damage as low as Mill City, then Gates. But Detroit got hit bad.

Even the firefighting gear got it.

I don't know if this was a prop for a restaurant or an actual motorcycle that got burned.

Everywhere you looked. Some houses and businesses were spared, most weren't.

Lots of chimneys and water heaters.

At least the Tesla charging stations were up.

This guy must have had a hell of a view.

Lots of the properties had these notices of completion on them. I think they were for insurance claims.

Remember the guy with the view? This is his next door neighbor, Already busy getting his place back.

Detroit will return. For good or bad. I wonder what next year will bring?