Moonlight Fire News

Hello Coppercreek Families and Friends!
The photo to the right was taken from our camp meadow on Tuesday afternoon. For those of you who haven't heard, we have a major forest fire (approximately 30,000 acres) burning near Coppercreek. First, I should say, everyone (people, horses, dogs, and cats) and everything (buildings, land, arenas and cabins) here at camp is absolutely fine for the time being. But, it has been a wild ride the last few days! We have received many calls and e-mails from our campers, staff, former campers and staff, family and friends. Thank you all for your kind words. We have so appreciated knowing you are all out there and thinking of us.
The very best site for current information on the fire and what is happening here is our local plumas news site http://www.plumasnews.com/news_story.edi?sid=5411. We have been keeping it open on our computers and hitting refresh every few moments!

Here is a timeline of what has happened so far.

Monday afternoon: Fire begins. We noticed a small plume of smoke rising on the other side of the ridge line you can see from the camp meadow. We called the fire department and were told the fire had started in Moonlight Valley about 6 to 8 air miles from camp. Craig jumped on his dirt bike and rode up the mountain to get a closer view. From the "Saddle" (the low spot of the mountain behind camp, just beneath Keddie Peak), he could clearly see the fire. From this vantage point, he could see a canyon behind the Keddie ridge line(Cook's Creek) and then another small ridge line. The fire was burning on the other side of that small ridge line. We had a quick meeting (Lornie, Craig and I) and decided that for the time being, we would watch it closely, but sit tight. We were all VERY grateful camp was empty and our campers were all home with their families!


Monday night and Tuesday day: Very little smoke was visible and the fire seemed to be quieting from our side of the mountain. According to the fire department and news reports from Monday & Tuesday, the fire was growing and very active, but the good news for us was that is was moving away from us all day. We went to Ryleigh's soccer practice on the other side of the Indian Valley late in the afternoon and this photo was taken from there. Although we were thrilled that camp was safe, we were starting to worry about our friends and neighbors who were closer to the fire!

Tuesday evening: A fierce wind begins to blow, thunderstorms roll in and the fire boils up into the cloud you see in the top photo. We start to make phone calls and develop contingency plans, but overnight, things quiet down. Some precautionary evacuations begin on the other side of the Valley, but still authorities are telling us the fire is moving away from us.


Wednesday: This is what the sky looked like at 8 am. Lauren, Craig and I sit down and line out a plan to evacuate the horses, goats, dogs and people. We put together lists of phone numbers and start calling friends and neighbors who will loan us horse trailers and can help with transporting our 42 head of horses. Officials still feel like the fire has no chance of reaching us, but we know it will take several hours to evacuate our horses and we really want to be prepared! We also call Kassandra (Brady the JC's Mom and a local CHP officer) in the evening. She was monitoring her CHP radio closely and she promised to call us if she heard anything about the fire moving toward us.

Wednesday night: The wind howled all night long and created spot fires which started to move the fire into Cook's Creek (the canyon just behind Keddie Ridge) and the Greenville Rancheria just a few miles away. We spent a sleepless night as precautionary evacuations were posted for our friends and neighbors nearby.

Thursday morning 6:30 am: We meet again and decide to evacuate our horses. Although fire officials tell us the fire is a long way from us, we decide the risk of spot fires is too big to keep the horses here. We know it will take up to 8 hours to move them all and we don't want to be moving animals at 2 am under an evacuation notice!

OH, School is cancelled, too!!

9 am: Friends and neighbors begin calling and showing up at camp to help. Most of them call or arrive before we even have a chance to call them! We feel so blessed to live in this community where neighbors are so willing to drop everything and help their neighbors in need. Within 20 minutes of deciding to move the horses, we had offers of places for all of them to go and more than enough trucks and trailers to move them. Trucks pulling horse trailers filed into our meadow and we moved all 42 horses to 3 ranches in Quincy and 1 outside Susanville. The whole operation was complete by about 1:30. We were blown away! We even were able to turn down some offers for help because we had enough. Everything was so smooth and the horses were amazingly calm and cooperated like we knew they would :)! After we moved our horses, we headed down the road and helped some of our neighbors move their horses. Big thank you's to the folks who helped us and our neighbors: Dennis and Dorothy Miller, Ken Radar, Kassandra Dimaggio and her friend Dave, Marsha Ravenaugh, Emily Jones and Erin, Jared Tappero, Bonnie Fox for giving up her horse trailer and our wonderful employees, Bobbie, Dean, Linda and Regina. We need to send another Thank You the people who are housing our horses: Patty Hughes, Tracy Sims, Katrina and Steve Tolen and Emily Jones!

Thursday evening: We attended the community meeting in the Greenville Cafeteria about the fire. There was even news crews there from Sacramento!! The fire officials confirmed that at this time, there is little chance of the fire reaching Coppercreek, UNLESS the North wind picks up like it did Wednesday night. We are all so glad we decided to move the horses rather than wait! Although we do not feel we or camp is in immediate danger, we know we can leave in just a few minutes at this point rather than several hours.