By Bob Kaster, published in the Siskiyou News, August 10, 2025.

Forks of Salmon, Siskiyou County, California, August 2, 2025.

On Saturday, August 2, Jay Martin, editor/publisher of Siskiyou.News, invited me to join him on a drive to Forks of Salmon, in the heart of the magnificently beautiful but rugged Klamath National Forest.

The purpose of the trip was to attend a Community Meeting at the Forks of Salmon Community Center to address the Orleans Complex wildfires that had been raging in the area. On hand were officials from various federal, state, and tribal agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, the Siskiyou County Sheriff, the Siskiyou County Office of Emergency Services, CalFire, California Interagency Incident Management Team 4, and the Karuk Tribe.

This journey was memorable for me. I was a flatlander again. My wife and I were flatlanders in 1972 when we settled in Yreka. After 53 years, I thought I had graduated, but that Saturday round trip drive from the Etna Summit, through Idlewild and Sawyer’s Bar to Forks of Salmon before the meeting; and then the return trip through Cecilville, Carter Meadow, and Callahan made me feel like a flatlander again. In summertime during our first 25 years in Siskiyou County, my family camped and backpacked in the Klamath National Forest every weekend. But that was years ago, and I had forgotten how amazingly majestic that part of the world is.

But the purpose of our trip wasn’t to sightsee. It was to attend the Community Meeting, an eye-opener for me. For our first quarter century living in Yreka, we’ve always felt reasonably safe from wildfire. Actual towns weren’t in danger, were they? I recall a couple of times watching fire up on Humbug from my front porch that were unnerving, but we didn’t have to evacuate. There was a sense of security living in a town the size of Yreka.

Recent events have crushed that sense of security. Examples:

The Camp Fire in 2018 took out Paradise and neighboring communities, burning more than 153,000 acres, destroying more than 18,000 structures, and killing 85 people.

The Mill Fire three years ago destroyed parts of Weed, Lake Shastina, and Edgewood, burning almost 4,000 acres, destroying 118 structures, and killing two people.

But they aren’t limited to rural communities out in the country. The January Pacific Palisades fire took out some 17,000 homes, businesses and other structures in the Los Angeles area.

So, the sense of security from living in town isn’t quite what it used to be.

But imagine your house is deep in the forest, miles from any town, with the only escape route being a one-lane road that snakes its way through steep mountain cliffs and thick forest, barely passable in the best of circumstances. And imagine that you look up at the ridge directly behind your house and you see and hear a line of orange flames headed your way!

Those were the stories the folks were telling at that meeting at the Forks of Salmon Community Center. They were righteously anxious, frightened, and concerned. Some were angry and critical of the agencies’ responses, most had questions, and many had valuable, practical suggestions, based on their experience and knowledge of the terrain.

The meeting was originally scheduled to last one hour, and the government agencies had that first hour tightly orchestrated, with an official videographer there to memorialize the event. The first forty-five minutes or so were essentially speeches from the agencies’ spokespersons, explaining in bureaucratic language what their respective roles and missions were at the scene. This left only a few minutes for questions and comments from local residents.

At the end of the hour, the KNF Forest Supervisor, fairly new to that position, attempted to wrap it up, and the official videographer discontinued the filming.

But that’s really when the action started, and Jay Martin was there with his Siskiyou.News video recording equipment to memorialize it. It went on for another full hour.

The folks had a lot to say.