BAKER CITY HERALD • SATuRDAY, AuguST 6, 2022 A5
THE WEST
Fire destroys homes in Washington town
BY JAMES HANLON, QUINN WELSCH,
GARRETT CABEZA AND EMMA
EPPERLY
The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.
LIND, Wash. — Many Lind resi-
dents scrambled to evacuate Thurs-
day, Aug. 4 after a fast-moving wild-
fire tore through the small town.
Six homes and eight structures
were destroyed, Adams County
Sheriff Dale Wagner said in a video
update on Facebook.
Kevin Starring, fire chief of Ad-
ams County Fire District 2, said he
was heartbroken about the struc-
tures lost.
“I’ve lived here my entire life and
never worked through this or been
through this, so I’m pretty devas-
tated about that,” Starring said.
The 2,500-acre fire struck south
of Lind, a town of 535 people in the
middle of Adams County, around
11:45 a.m. Thursday, the state fire
marshal’s office said. The cause is
under investigation.
Starring said late Thursday after-
noon there was no active fire and
crews were putting out hot spots.
He said he’s battled large wheat
fires and others like it, “but I’ve
never been involved where people
have lost their homes and lost ev-
erything. You read about and see it
on TV all the time, but until you live
through it, you have no idea.”
Wagner said there were no reports
of major injuries besides one fire-
fighter suffering from smoke inhala-
tion who was airlifted to Spokane.
Starring said he was concerned the
fire could burn the entire town be-
cause of the strong winds and flames
that burned higher than fire trucks.
The fire started southwest of town
and rolled over the hillside on the
town’s southern edge. He said fire-
fighters knocked the blaze down a
bit and saved some homes.
In other areas, Starring said the
fire was “too intense,” and crews had
to leave as the flames came right
at them. Starring said crews would
likely be on scene for two or three
days to ensure the fire fueled by
warm, dry and windy conditions
does not reignite.
“It’s not good, but it could have
been a lot worse,” he said.
Megan Shepard’s home was saved.
The fire came within about 20 feet
of her driveway before firefighters
swooped in and stopped it. She said
the wind shifted directions, help-
ing push the fire east, away from her
home.
Some of her neighbors weren’t so
lucky. Shephard said she spoke with
one of them in town after the fire
ripped through his property.
“It’s devastating,” she said. “I
mean, I’m happy that my home was
OK, but I mean, they’re our neigh-
bors.”
Shephard said she and her hus-
band were at work when the fire
started, and her son was the only one
home.
“It was scary trying to get home
in time,” she said. “My husband was
like, ‘I don’t know if the house is go-
ing to be there when you get there.’”
Shephard said she and her fam-
ily loaded up their dogs, ducks and
chickens in case the fire did burn
their property.
“I was worried about my animals,”
she said. “I was like, ‘I need to get my
animals out.’”
Lind clerk Barbara Pence said the
fire appears to have skirted along the
south edge of town to the east. The
town was prepared to evacuate and
advised residents to leave if they felt
unsafe, but the north part of town
was never ordered to evacuate, she
said.
“We were lucky that it didn’t come
into town and take out the entire
town,” Pence said. “It is sad that we
lost the homes that we did and we
feel for the people that are affected.
And as a small community, the com-
munity will band together and help
Ready, set, go: Less
than 100 days
until election
A sheriff’s car
passes between
vehicles that
were burned
then flooded
and a pile of
trees that were
carried by a
flash flood at the
McKinney Fire
in the Klamath
National Forest
near Yreka, Cali-
fornia, on Aug. 3,
2022.
BY GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
David McNew/AFP
via Getty Images-TNS
Wind-whipped fire left Northern
California hamlet in ashes
BY HAVEN DALEY AND
CHRISTOPHER WEBER
Associated Press
KLAMATH RIVER, Ca-
lif. — A week ago, the scenic
Northern California hamlet
of Klamath River was home
to about 200 people and had a
community center, post office
and a corner grocery store.
Now, after a wildfire raged
through the forested region
near the Oregon state line,
four people are dead and the
store is among the few build-
ings not reduced to ashes.
At an evacuation cen-
ter Wednesday, Aug. 3, Bill
Simms said that three of the
four victims were his neigh-
bors. Two were a married cou-
ple who lived up the road.
“I don’t get emotional about
stuff and material things,”
Simms said. “But when you
hear my next-door neighbors
died. ... that gets a little emo-
tional.”
The 65-year-old retiree
bought his property six years
ago as a second home with
access to hunting and fishing.
He said Klamath River is a
place people are attracted to
because they can have privacy
and enjoy nature.
He went back to check on
his property Tuesday, Aug. 2
and found it was destroyed.
“The house, the guest house
and the RV were gone. It’s
just wasteland, devastation,”
Simms said. He found the
body of one of his two cats,
which he buried. The other cat
is still missing. He was able to
take his two dogs with him to
the shelter.
The McKinney Fire broke
those families, I’m sure.”
Pence said the City Council will
need to meet to determine what the
city can do to help residents who lost
their homes.
“We feel for the people that have
been affected, and we are here to
help with what we can,” Pence said.
Lind Mayor Paula Bell said the
fire caused the town to lose power,
and Avista Utilities was on scene to
address the issue. Meanwhile, city
crews were working nonstop, she
said, to ensure the city’s water wells
were running properly.
Washington State Patrol Chief
John Batiste authorized the mobili-
zation of state firefighting resources,
including multiple aircraft and fire
agencies from around the region.
Local volunteer firefighters also as-
sisted, and Bell said she appreciated
the assistance.
“It’s too bad that it’s a disaster that
brings people together, but it’s good
to have neighbors,” she said.
out July 29 and was still out of
control on Wednesday, despite
progress by firefighters who
took advantage of rain from
thunderstorms and lower
temperatures.
But even the welcome
precipitation brought prob-
lems. On Tuesday, heavy rain
swelled rivers and creeks and a
private contractor in a pickup
truck who was aiding the fire-
fighting effort was hurt when
a bridge gave out and washed
away the vehicle, said Court-
ney Kreider, a spokesperson
with the Siskiyou County
Sheriff’s Office. The con-
tractor was hospitalized with
non-life-threatening injuries,
she said.
More than 100 buildings
ranging from homes to sheds
have burned. Identifying
the four people who were
killed could take several days,
Kreider said.
The fire has charred nearly
90 square miles and is the
largest in California so far this
year. The cause is unknown.
With the rain and cooler
temperatures, the blaze grew
very little and fire officials said
crews used bulldozers to carve
firebreaks along a ridge to
protect homes and buildings
in and around Yreka, which
has about 7,800 residents and
is the largest city in Siskiyou
County.
On Wednesday, evacuation
orders for residents of Yreka
and Hawkinsville were down-
graded to warnings, allowing
people to return home. But
they were warned the fire re-
mains a threat and were urged
to be ready to flee again if nec-
essary.
Skies were mostly clear on
Wednesday and temperatures
were in the mid- to high 90s,
baking an already parched
landscape.
California and much of the
rest of the West is in drought
and wildfire danger is high,
with the historically worst of
the fire season still to come.
Fires are burning in Montana,
Idaho and Nebraska and have
destroyed homes and threaten
communities.
Scientists say climate
change has made the West
warmer and drier over the last
three decades and will con-
tinue to make weather more
extreme and wildfires more
frequent and destructive.
California has seen its larg-
est, most destructive and
deadliest wildfires in the last
five years. In 2018, a massive
blaze in the Sierra Nevada
foothills destroyed much of
the city of Paradise and killed
85 people, the most deaths
from a U.S. wildfire in a cen-
tury.
When it began, the McK-
inney Fire burned just several
hundred acres and firefighters
thought they would quickly
bring it under control. But
thunderstorms came in with
ferocious wind gusts that
within hours had pushed it
into an unstoppable confla-
gration.
Roger Derry, 80, and his
son, Rodger, were among
the few families from Klam-
ath River whose homes were
spared by the inferno. The
elder Derry, who has lived in
the unincorporated town for
more than four decades, said
the fire was terrifying.
“When that fire came over
that ridgeline, it had 100-foot
flames for about 5 miles and
the wind was blowing. It was
coming down like a solid
blowtorch,” he said. “There
was nothing to stop it.”
Harlene Schwander, 82, lost
the home she had just moved
into a month ago to be closer
to her son and daughter-in-
law. Their home survived but
her house was torched.
Schwander, an artist, said
she only managed to grab a
few family photos and some
jewelry before evacuating.
Everything else — including
her art collection, went up in
flames.
“I’m sad. Everybody says it
was just stuff, but it was all I
had,” she said.
In northwestern Montana, a
fire that has destroyed at least
four homes and forced the
evacuation of about 150 resi-
dences west of Flathead Lake
continued to be pushed north
by winds on Wednesday, fire
officials said.
Crews had to be pulled off
the lines on Wednesday af-
ternoon due to increased fire
activity, Sara Rouse, a public
information officer, told NBC
Montana.
There were concerns the
fire could reach Lake Mary
Ronan by Wednesday eve-
ning, officials said.
The fire, which started on
July 29 in grass on the Flat-
head Indian Reservation,
quickly moved into timber
and had charred nearly 29
square miles.
It’s easy to feel like the
November election is a long
way off.
Primary election ballots
were still being counted just
10 weeks ago.
It’s been just a month since
the Fourth of July.
One of the main “candi-
dates” for governor hasn’t
qualified to run and likely
won’t hit that mark until the
end of August.
Summer, the old and in-
creasingly irrelevant conven-
tional wisdom says, is a time
of political doldrums. Labor
Day, the traditional “kick-
off” of the general election
campaign, is still a month
away.
But political tradition
hasn’t held up in recent elec-
tion cycles and has been
largely kicked to the curb in
2022. There will be a new
governor, at least three new
members of Congress, and
a host of new legislators rep-
resenting new districts. Also
on the ballot are measures
on gun control and barring
recalcitrant lawmakers from
running for office if they
walk off the job too often.
One look at the calendar
shows the climax of the 2022
election is rapidly approach-
ing. As of Sunday, there were
100 days until the Nov. 8
general election.
The primary culled and
cleared the political field.
The May 17 ballot fea-
tured 346 candidates: 146
Republicans, 134 Democrats
and 97 running for officially
non-partisan offices.
The effect of voting was
dramatic.
May 17 began with 34
candidates for governor, 10
for U.S. Senator, 16 for the
new 6th Congressional Dis-
trict, and 10 for U.S. Senator,
seven for the Bureau of La-
bor and Industries commis-
sioner.
When the final votes were
tallied over a week later, each
race had two finalists.
The primary notched
its first major casualty of
2022 when U.S. Rep. Kurt
Schrader, D-Canby, was
upset by progressive Terre-
bonne attorney Jamie Mc-
Leod-Skinner in his bid for
an eighth term representing
the 5th Congressional Dis-
trict.
The outcome of the May
17 vote also put two bitter
rivals from the House on a
collision course in the race
for governor.
With Gov. Kate Brown
barred from running again
due to term limits, Demo-
crats chose former House
Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Port-
land, as their nominee. For-
mer House Leader Christine
Drazan, R-Canby, topped the
GOP primary field.
Kotek and Drazan had
both resigned from the
House early to run for gov-
ernor. Along with inflation,
COVID-19, abortion, guns,
housing and homeless poli-
cies, their campaigns would
be framed by a personal an-
imosity born from a 2021
fight over a broken bargain
on political redistricting.
“She lied and broke her
promise not just to us but
to Oregonians,” Drazan said
Sept. 21, 2021. “She just
sold the soul of our state for
Democrats’ political gain.”
In most years, that would
be enough drama by itself.
But last week the first ma-
jor debate of the governor’s
race was held at a newspa-
per publishers’ convention
in Clackamas County. Shar-
ing the stage with Kotek and
Drazan was a third candidate
for governor who has raised
the largest campaign war
chest, but hasn’t appeared on
a ballot or even qualified to
run for the office.
Former Sen. Betsy John-
son, D-Scappoose, dropped
out of the Senate and the
Democratic Party in a bid to
become just the second gov-
ernor since Oregon became
a state in 1859 to win the
governorship without a ma-
jor party affiliation.
Johnson has a solidly bi-
furcated political pedigree.
Born in Bend and raised
in Redmond, she was the
daughter of timberman and
philanthropist Sam John-
son, who served as a Re-
publican in the Legislature
and as mayor of Redmond.
His daughter moved to his
left, both on the map and on
the political spectrum. She
made her name in the avia-
tion business on the Oregon
Coast and her own long ca-
reer in Salem was as a Dem-
ocrat.
Johnson is seeking to cast
herself as the middle lane be-
tween a far-left Kotek and a
far-right Drazan.
Federal agency sues Idaho over its abortion law
BY MICHAEL BALSAMO AND
REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press
BOISE — The Justice De-
partment on Tuesday, Aug. 2
filed a lawsuit that challenges
Idaho’s restrictive abortion
law, arguing that it conflicts
with a federal law requiring
doctors to provide pregnant
women medically necessary
treatment that could include
abortion.
The federal government
brought the lawsuit seeking
to invalidate the state’s “crim-
inal prohibition on providing
abortions as applied to women
suffering medical emergen-
cies,” Attorney General Mer-
rick Garland said.
The announcement is the
first major action by the Jus-
tice Department challenging a
state trigger law since the Su-
preme Court overturned Roe
v. Wade in June. The court’s
decision has led some states to
enact restrictive abortion laws
and is likely to lead to abor-
tion bans in roughly half the
states in the U.S.
The Justice Department
brought the suit because fed-
eral prosecutors believe Ida-
ho’s law would force doctors to
violate the Emergency Medi-
cal Treatment and Labor Act,
a federal law that requires any-
one coming to a medical facil-
ity for emergency treatment to
be stabilized and treated, Gar-
land said.
“Idaho’s law would make it a
criminal offense for doctors to
provide the emergency medi-
cal treatment that federal law
requires,” Garland said.
Idaho, like many Republi-
can-led states, has several an-
ti-abortion laws on the books,
creating a legal quagmire now
that the U.S. Supreme Court has
overturned the landmark abor-
tion rights case Roe v. Wade.
The law targeted by the Jus-
tice Department criminalizes
all abortions, subjecting any-
one who performs or attempts
to perform an abortion to a
felony punishable by between
two and five years in prison.
People who are charged
under the law could defend
themselves against the crimi-
nal allegations by arguing that
the abortion was done to save
a pregnant person from death,
or that it was done after the
pregnant person reported that
they were a victim of rape or
incest to a law enforcement
agency — and provided a copy
of that report to the abortion
provider.
“Under the Idaho law, once
effective, any state or local
prosecutor can subject a phy-
sician to indictment, arrest,
and prosecution merely by
showing that an abortion has
been performed, without re-
gard to the circumstances,” the
Department of Justice wrote
in the lawsuit.
“The law then puts the bur-
den on the physician to prove
an ‘affirmative defense’ at
trial.”
Advocates for sexual assault
survivors have said the rape
and incest exception is essen-
tially useless, because Idaho’s
public record law doesn’t al-
low law enforcement agencies
to release reports when a case
is still under investigation —
a process that generally takes
weeks or months.
Dr. Caitlin Gustafson, a
family physician, and a re-
gional Planned Parenthood
organization have already
sued over the abortion ban
and two other anti-abortion
laws in the Idaho Supreme
Court, which is expected to
hear arguments in the case
on Wednesday. In the lawsuit,
Gustafson contends that the
exception for medical emer-
gencies is vague and impossi-
ble to interpret.
“It would be very difficult, if
not impossible, for me to im-
plement the medical exception
and provide care to a pregnant
person whose life may be at
risk,” wrote Gustafson, noting
that some serious pregnan-
cy-related medical conditions
like preeclampsia can cause
death though it is not guaran-
teed to do so.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a
Republican, said the U.S. Su-
preme Court gave states the
ability to regulate abortion,
“end of story.” He promised to
work with the state’s attorney
general, Lawrence Wasden, to
defend the law.