I'm sorry to hear about those wildfires in summer. But it doesn't look like it had a big impact on that particular area or it did recover very quickly.
We have many blueberries back home and we were always taught to be careful with picking them as bears like them as well :) So yes, you are lucky that you didn't encounter any bear. You would think that they are slow as they are big and fat but as you say they can do everything - run up and down the hill, climb a tree, swim and everything they do better than we.
You took some great photos and I like that you shared some photography tips as well. Thank you for that!
The wildfires came from Eastern Washington, Oregon, and Canada - but somehow all their smoke came our way :)