A8
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wildfires
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
FIRE
Continued from Page A1
“The community cares
about the community, and
that’s the bottom line,” she
said. “It’s a beautiful commu-
nity.”
Lost everything
Ron White said he was
working, and unaware of the
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out of control.
He was living at a friend’s
house at Cougar Crossing in
the canyon.
After delivering packages
in Dayville for the company he
works for, he headed home for
the day.
“I was told that the Berry
Creek Fire was under control
and wasn’t concerned about
it,” he said. “I came around the
corner from work outside Day-
ville, and that’s when I saw it
(the big plume of smoke).”
He said he was stopped
at a road closure in Canyon
City near the Golden Dragon
Restaurant.
“All I got was what I had in
my work truck,” he said, add-
ing that he lost guns and other
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He said that his company is
taking good care of him for the
time being.
Malheur National Forest
Supervisor Steve Beverlin said
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friends and neighbors also lost
homes.
“That hits home, and that’s
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are doing everything they can
to get that mountain under con-
trol.”
Can’t do it alone
He added, “We can’t do it
alone, we need the help of ev-
eryone. Grant County is a resil-
ient county and will come out
Courtesy of inciweb.nwcg.gov
A crew works along a road on the west side of the
Canyon Creek Complex fire near Canyon City, Aug. 18.
URRPWKDWLVZRUWKD¿UH¿JKW-
er’s life,” he added.
Wind picks up
Had the circumstances hap-
pened on any other day, things
may have gone differently, he
said.
The Eagle/Angel Carpenter
“The Berry Creek Fire was
Visiting after the community fire meeting are volunteer firefighter Carl Metler, left,
Canyon City property owner James Dunn, John Day Fire Chief Ron Smith and volunteer pretty much close to being a
done deal — contained,” he
firefighter Ronda Metler.
said.
Perfect storm
The Mason Springs was act-
the other side — they always VLELOLW\IRUWKH¿UH
do.”
“In my opinion one struc-
John Day Fire Chief Ron ing up Thursday night, but later
Fire behavior analyst Tobin ture lost is one too many, but Smith related the Aug. 14 calmed a little, he said.
“It looked like we had a pret-
Kelley said temperatures in the they did a great job of protect- event to the movie “The Per-
area would be hotter this week, ing a large number of structures fect Storm” where a small ty good handle on it, and then
but lighter wind speeds would that day (Aug. 14),” he said.
¿VKLQJ ERDW IDFHV D IRRW the inversion came through, the
cold front,” he said. “We had a
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2YHUHQJLQHVZLWKFDUHHU wave.
“We might see an increase ¿UH¿JKWHUVIURPWKURXJKRXWWKH
The wind event that came big wind, and that’s what sort of
LQ ¿UHV EHLQJ HVWDEOLVKHG DW state have arrived from areas in- down through the canyon blew everything up and sent it
a bottom of a drainage or the cluding Hood River, Portland, “created a perfect storm, and down the canyon.”
“Think about trying to run 40
bottom of a slope ... but with- Toledo, Bend and elsewhere.
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out the really strong wind, it’s
“Those are communities that
He said the Berry Creek or 50 miles an hour — you can’t
not going to want to push it,” see your community as import- DQG 0DVRQ 6SULQJV ¿UHV ² NHHS DKHDG RI D ¿UH OLNH WKDW´
he said.
ant,” he said.
which became the Canyon he said. “We had brands, the
Jeff Surber, operations sec-
“They’re here and will be Creek Complex — were un- KRWVSRWVWKDWWKH¿UHSLFNVXS
tion chief, said there are en- here as long as they’re needed derstaffed from the beginning and blows, they were dropping
gines, hand crews, air tankers, to do the best job that we can for the amount of terrain in- those things anywhere from a
half-mile to a mile ahead of the
helicopters and two Type 1 hot- possibly do in protecting the in- volved.
shot crews at work.
frastructure of your community
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“They’re building a line and as well as your homes,” he said. ¿JKWHUV ZHUH ¿JKWLQJ WKH ¿UH you do what you can do, and
making sure that gets secure up
Grant County Sheriff Glenn along with U.S. Forest Service that’s all that you can do.”
there,” he said.
Palmer described the Canyon crews, which were also limited
Be a volunteer
He said crews are working Creek area as “an apocalypse.”
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at Whiskey Gulch and Pine
He said, “It actually looks
“These folks stayed as long
He welcomed residents to
Creek to create a buffer be- like a nuclear bomb went off up as they possibly could, trying consider signing up to be a vol-
WZHHQKRXVHVDQGWKH¿UHFRP- in this canyon.”
to protect exposures until it XQWHHU¿UH¿JKWHUIRUDQ\RIWKH
ing down the hill.
When the roads open up — got so unbearable, then for the FLW\ ¿UH GHSDUWPHQWV LQ *UDQW
which wasn’t expected for a sake of safety they were told to County.
Protecting structures
few more days — Palmer said back out, come back down,”
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way above and beyond, and it
Red Team Incident Com- he would like people to be re- he said.
“There is nothing here that just didn’t turn out good,” he
mander Jim Walker, who is the spectful of private property, for
2UHJRQ6WDWH)LUH0DUVKDOVDLG drivers to be safety-minded and we have that you can put in a said.
suitcase or watch in your front
The meeting closed with a
his team has structural respon- IRUFDXWLRQWREHXVHGZLWK¿UH
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when roads would be open and
about power to the county.
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lines.
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still not enough people to watch
them.
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and people call in what they see.
Another person asked if
there is any containment of the
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only 5 to 10 percent contained
because of natural barriers
and added containment would
mean they don’t have to con-
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once it’s pulled in 100 feet, then
it’s somewhat contained, and
this will happen as more crews
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Steve Dunn had a sugges-
tion for the audience.
“I grew up here, I love this
county,” he said. “Your forest
supervisor said it best — he
said they can’t do it alone.”
He said the community
could come together to volun-
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“Here’s my suggestion so
that it doesn’t happen again:
Get together, create a volunteer
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direction of the chief, and you
want to work in partnership
with these people,” he said.
“Thank them — they’ve done a
great job — but do it. These are
your forests, you live here, you
protect them.”
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