Columbia River Gorge Fire Only 15% Contained As Night Falls
By Michael Andersen, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.
Sep. 21–UNDERWOOD — A brush fire destroyed five houses and a barn, scorching 150 acres in this Columbia River Gorge community Thursday.
The blaze remained only 15 percent contained late Thursday night. It wasn’t known when the state Department of Natural Resources will allow evacuees from 60 homes to return home.
No one was hurt in the fire, which started near the BNSF Railway tracks near state Highway 14 at 11:30 a.m. and swept up the cliff above, sending flames shooting into the air, witnesses said.
“White smoke at first — then it got very black,” said Ed Falk, 82, whose home above the fire was one of those evacuated by firefighters. “That signaled to me that it was not just trees and brush burning. When you see black smoke, it’s scary.”
Cause under investigation
Four occupied homes high above the river along Cook-Underwood Road were destroyed by the blaze. Their addresses and owners’ identities were unavailable Thursday night, though Falk’s home was not one of the four that burned.
The fire, which broke out near the abandoned Broughton Mill and west of the Spring Creek National Fish Hatchery, also destroyed an abandoned house and barn near the BNSF tracks.
One front of the fire moved up the steep cliff toward Cook-Underwood Road, burning homes between the cliff and the road, which became a fire break. Another lobe of the fire spread east.
The blaze was clearly of human origin, said Stan Hinatsu, a USFS spokesman, though a more specific cause hadn’t been determined as of late Thursday. The Skamania County Sheriff’s Office said a BNSF team had been grinding railroad tracks in the county for the past three days.
“We at BNSF are participating in the investigation,” said BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas. “However, we have not determined an official cause at this point, and we will not speculate.”
More than 120 firefighters from at least 10 agencies worked for hours to contain the fire, using chain saws and shovels to cut fire lines through the brush in steep terrain covered with grasses, brush and evergreen trees.
“This is a challenging area because of the cliffs,” said Paul Norman, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.
Four helicopters dumped water from nearby rivers. Air tankers were unable to drop flame retardant because of the same strong west winds that fanned the fire. Wind speeds at a nearby weather station were clocked at 33 mph with gusts of 38 mph at 5 p.m.; winds eased as the evening continued.
“It’s not uncommon to have 100-plus-acre fires every other year,” Hinatsu said.
Still, it’s rare to have a fire that damages more than one home, said Hannah Settje, director for the Hood River Red Cross district.
In two and a half years in the region, which runs from Cascade Locks to the Idaho border and Skamania County south to Bend, Ore., Settje said she’d never seen another fire that wiped out more than one single-family home.
The Red Cross provided free sandwiches for evacuees Thursday night and cots for them in the nearby Mill A School gymnasium. But almost all found other places to eat and sleep.
The Red Cross will also probably offer clothes and shelter to the families left homeless by the blaze.
Preparing to leave the Mill A School for the home of a local family Thursday night, evacuees Lora Falk said her neighbor had received a call from a daughter who’d seen the fire on the news in San Francisco.
“When we get home, we’ll probably have lots of phone calls,” said Falk, 81, “if the lines are working.”
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.
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