Folks have been asking why certain events are still happening on the Fairgrounds but why most have been cancelled. To help you understand and to give you an ‘inside’ view, we are sharing some photos of what a Fire Camp looks like as the US Forest Service has moved onto much of the Fairgrounds campus.

They are renting ALL THREE of the event buildings – the Valley Event Center, Exhibit Hall and Memorial Hall. Along with that, they are using all of the paved parking area, and have set up about eight yurts, dozens of porta-potties, and their vehicles. Because of this, the paved parking lot is closed to the public.

Along with the fairgrounds, they are also using a large portion of the Mill property behind the fairgrounds. They are a well-oiled machine, with their own cleaning crew, office personnel, food truck, shower truck, and even a coffee truck.

Since the Outdoor Arena is on the opposite side of the grounds from where Fire Camp is, the Fair Board and US Forest Service made it work so that the two large events – the Demo Derby, and the Tractor Pull – could happen as scheduled. Parking for these events is on the gravel parking lot, and people will need to walk through the park/play-ground to get to the Outdoor Arena events.

Unfortunately, all other events to date have been cancelled. We hope the attached photos will help you understand why.

As soon as they get to a point where they feel their job is done, and they are starting to pack up, they will let us know, and we will let the future scheduled event coordinators know. Hopefully with the cooler, moister weather it won’t be much longer. We have a full schedule of events calendared this fall and hope they will be able to happen.

Meanwhile, we are happy that they came to help put out these fires. They have been wonderful to work with.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we navigate through this emergency in our County.