Spilyay tymoo., August 10, 1979, Page 8, Image 8

Page 8
August 10,1979
August 10,1979
Wild Fire!
A raging grass fire lik ; the one that swept the reservation August 2 plays out the drama
o f man against nature in classic form. And as ever with nature, man comes away with
renewed respect for ; force that resists his control.
Matching wits with a wild fire is
something only our species would at, ;mpt.
While wild animals flee, we gather fo cesin
military fashion and do battle. But m ich to
our frustration, there are times wh tn we
can do little more than let nature ti ke its
c o u rse —and sim ply m inim izj the
damages.
With a fire like the one that coni umed
1,630 acres of grass, sagebrush andji niper
during the night of August 2. ht mans
u n d e r s ta n d a b ly feel responsible.
Preliminary investigation has ruled out a
natural cause and pinned the blame on
either human carelessness or mischi ¡f. All
the “Keep Oregon Green” signs in th: state
will not prevent that one match from
dropping to dry grass nor halt the r ailing
flames and smoke in their single-m|nded
race across open ground.
descended, they were truly helpless —
watching the red glow on the horizon come
closer, a wall of hungry flame that rolled
over junipers, crept within yards of their
homes, and finally retreated.
The careful plotting of Fire Control and
Forestry, although at times apparently
futile, did divert and slow the fire’s march.
Fire boss Bob Bolton (right in photo
below) reviewed the course of the flames
with Forestry head Ken Engelbretson (left)
and Fire Control officer Grover Sixkiller
(middle). Besides building fire lines, the
strategy was to “burn out” areas in the path
of the fire to eliminate fuels. It worked at
two points along the highway, much to the
relief of Maxine, a forty-year resident of
her nearby home site. Volunteer firemen
and equipment from Warm Springs and
North Unit also stood by to protect
threatened dwellings.
Man tried desperately to fight the fleets
of strong winds that fanned the fire 1 r om a
state of containment to, as one fi reiig hter
described it, a “holy roaring Ijitch.”
Leaping the Warm Springs River ■ fro m its
origin northeast of the fish hatcheiy the
inferno rolled through a remote r ofrdless
area, gathering up momentum and
jumping the Kah-Nee-Ta Road Cats
trundled awkwardly over the jigged
ground, etching fire lines- but )arely
keeping pace with the southeast ward
progress of the flames (below left).
Maxine McKinley (below, seconc from
left) and her neighbors, whose homes 1, ay in
the fire’s path, were evacuated at dusk.
Huddled in blankets as darfc
But no sooner were Maxine and her
neighbors safely back in their homes,
shortly before midnight, but the focus of
attention switched dramatically to Kah-
Nee-Ta Village,. The tepees held their
ground in defiance, (right) while campers
fleed—some for home and others for a safe
plot of grass. Resort manager Bill Pauli
-clung to his house till flames crept down
the hillside to within feet. Tiny silhouetted
figures could be seen wielding shovels and
gunny sacks on thé waves of fire^-and
winning. When the threat Was gone, Pauli
looked unfazèd, mingling with River
R oom em p lo y ees and v o lu n te e r
firefighters who were constructing and
consuming hard-earned sandwiches.
Fire lines on the eastern front contained
the blaze by about 2:00 a.m., with the help
of slackening winds. But la'ter that
morning forces forty-strong from Gifford
Pinchot National Forest arrived with two
helicopters and tackled spot fires in the
remote areas. Jim Neilson sorted through
K ah -N ee-T a-su p p lied ra tio n s and
government equipment prior to airlifting
them to crews (bottom left). Later in the
morning the transport helicopter became a
firefighter, dipping 150-gallon buckets of
water from the Warm Springs River at the
hatchery and dumping them along the lines
and on stubborn hot spots. Three
helicopters, one on a season contract with
Fire Control, kept up a steady drone
throughout the day and into the next,
cooling the ravaged landscape.
“The results of the runaway blaze were
dramatic. Whilemo power was lost, at least
one telephone pole became victim to the
excessive heat (bottom middle), hanging
from the lines it had previously held aloft.
A half-burned juniper near the start of the
fire gave visual testimony to the heat and
speed of the blaze— hot enough to scorch
and scar the landscape but too impatient to
linger and complete the job.
Miles of blackened hills and flats lay
quietly by daylight, seeming to harbor
memories of the nightmarish boiling of
flame and smoke. But man will most
probably step in again to reseed^ the
charred soil, helping nature renew its'elf as
if in apology for the carelessness of his
kind.
Man
vs.
Page 9
Nature