Return to Canyon Creek burn zone: Recovery — and new threats

As the black scars turn white with snow, wounds were fresh again for dozens of families in Canyon City, realizing Christmas will be much different this year.

The Speths always celebrated with family and friends in their log-cabin home in the family since the 1970s.

With the house reduced to ashes, this year they’ll get away — a trip to Disneyland for the holiday.

“My mom let us borrow her fake Christmas tree and gave us some ornaments and we had some donated, but it’s just not the same to decorate the tree,” Shae Speth said last week.

Monday was the four-month anniversary of when the Canyon Creek Complex Fire blew up in Grant County, consuming dozens of homes and outbuildings in just minutes as it roared down the canyon.

In the end, 43 homes and dozens more outbuildings were leveled in the 110,000-acre blaze that burned for nearly three months. In terms of building loss, it’s now the most devastating fire in Oregon’s history, since flames destroyed nearly the entire city of Bandon in 1936.

The Speths — Shae and Steve and their two sons — are now renting in John Day. They’re leaning toward rebuilding a new home on the property.

“For me, it’s been, ‘This is home — of course we’re going to rebuild,'” Shae said.

But driving up to the site where their home stood just months ago is still painful.

“It’s just strange, even driving up the canyon,” said Steve Speth.

In the burn zone, three homes are now under construction, one of which owners Dean and Courtney Fox hope will be finished before the new year.

“We’re in a much better place now,” Courtney Fox said by phone. “You’ll be surprised by how far along we are on the house.”

Still, there’s no mistaking the devastation along U.S. Highway 395. Although the piles of rubble are much neater, the twisted metal and chimneys remain, dotting the route on each side. Last week power companies replaced some damaged poles.

A yellow sign guarding the canyon’s entrance warns there’s serious potential of another disaster: “Burned watershed next 15 miles,” it reads. “Risk from flash flood, rockfall and debris.”

As the rest of Oregon prays for rain and snow, Grant County Judge Scott Myers said the county is praying for nature’s mercy this winter.

Myers told NewsChannel 21 it’s not just residents along Canyon Creek, but the town of Canyon City and John Day that are threatened.

“Our soils in the severe burned areas are now hydrophobic, meaning that it will not absorb moisture,” Myers said. “It’s turned to glass, and moisture that hits it will slide.”

New, larger culverts recently were installed to lessen the risks.

“We could get increased water flows, flash floods, debris, stumps, logs,” Myers said, adding that water flows are expected to increase by more than 300 percent down Canyon Creek.

The threat is so imminent that the county already has begun filling sandbags to be ready. About 400 homes and dozens of businesses are at risk.

Last Tuesday, volunteers with AmeriCorps filled sandbags to protect Oregon State Park’s Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site.

Park Ranger Art Dickens has seen floods in John Day before, but this time around he’s more nervous.

“That’s a huge watershed that’s burned off,” Dickens said. “It’ll be a serious concern.”

Up the canyon, it’s even more troubling — an increased potential for landslides.

“There’s big rocks up there — they could slide,” said Steve Speth, pointing to the hill above where his home once stood.

It’s tough, some residents say — going from one natural disaster to the threat of others.

Even though the community is not yet out of the woods, they’re also closer because of it.

“It’s been amazing. People were so generous,” Steve said. ” It’s a humbling experience, for sure.”

The good and the bad — the Speths said not a day goes by they don’t think of what happened back on Aug. 14.

“Just about every day, in the shower in the morning, I do this,” Shae said, her eyes filling with tears. “I hope soon it will be over. It’s just an everyday reminder.”

She’s eager to move on and start fresh.

“A lot of people say how ugly it is up there, and it may very well be,” she said. “But for me, I want to be a part of the that rebuilding and that regrowth.”