Entiat Valley fire, 1994

This is a series of stories I wrote for Northwest Public Radio in the summer of 1994. The big story was the fires burning out of control in four connecting valleys.

But like all forest fires, no one had any idea how long it would burn and how much ground it would cover when it first started. They thought what happened to them was as bad as it would get.

ANNOUNCER
A fire in the Entiat Valley that's been raging out of control since yesterday has had effects ranging from disastrous to eerie. Diane De Rooy has the story.

DIANE
At shelters in Chelan, Leavenworth and Entiat, the Red Cross gave aid to nearly 100 fire evacuees. Public information officer Courteney SOOZ-mail and dozens of volunteers work tirelessly, even though they have trouble breathing in the stinging orange smoke.

SOOZ-mail tells stories of the fire.

On Wednesday, she noticed a couple working hard at the shelter, helping others to feel safe. Later, she discovered these volunteers were fire victims who had lost everything. They had no
insurance.

The humane society is sheltering frightened housepets until the fire is over. But not all animals fare so well.

One group of ranchers braved flames to reach their cattle on the fire line and herd them to safety. But as they approached they saw to their horror that the cattle who hadn't succumbed to smoke were on fire.

SOOZ-mail says the fire is literally creating its own weather system, with high winds that feed its fury.

There's still no sign of rain in the forecast.

For Northwest Public Radio, I'm Diane De Rooy.

ANNOUNCER

The Rat Creek fire south of Leavenworth cut a clean swath east to Blewett Pass, where it blazed through a group of homes before jumping the highway. Diane De Rooy has the story.

DIANE

Firefighter Dan Dittrich had barely returned from the Tyee Mountain inferno when he saw the Rat Creek fire heading for his backyard on Blewett Pass.

Dittrich dug fire lines and felled trees around the home he's building near the junction of Highways 97 and 2.

Then he headed for his neighbors' with bulldozer and backhoe, assuring them that everything would be okay if they made a stand, once he set backfires in motion.

Following Dittrich's lead, courageous residents stood their ground. All their homes were saved.

Diane Muranke and Kurt Neubert live on the other side of Highway 97. For eight years, they've been building a home, cutting and peeling each log by hand.

They were standing in their driveway when the fire jumped the road.

As they evacuated, Muranke looked back and saw that the ridge above their home was crowning with flames. In her heart, she wrote off eight years of work.

Muranke and Neubert returned to their land on Sunday to find their home still standing.

They know it's not over. Fire crews are using their road to get back in the woods and cut fire lines.

For Northwest Public Radio, I'm Diane De Rooy.

ANNOUNCER
Twenty-five miles from the center of hell, smoke and ash from the Entiat fire pour into the giant bowl of the Wenatchee Valley. Diane De Rooy has the story.

DIANE
Simple breathing is difficult. The oxygen has gone to feed the insatiable fire.

But most people around here are prepared. An 83-year-old devotee of yard sales didn't let the smoke stop her. She appeared at sale after sale, a wet hankerchief over her nose and mouth. As soon as she took the hankie away, she exploded into hacking coughs.

Yesterday, the Red Cross put out a call for nurse volunteers. They were swamped with calls, easily filling their quotas with plenty of nurses on standby.

In Entiat, one Red Cross volunteer says she can't tell day from night. She wonders if the fire will ever end.

Officials say this is the worst fire in two decades.

For Northwest Public Radio, I'm Diane De Rooy.

ANNOUNCER
Losses from fires in the Wenatchee Valley can be counted in dollars and cents. But one mountain woman, whose home was spared, counts her loss of habitat. Diane De Rooy has the story.

DIANE
You climb up a rustic road, then descend into a natural bowl made of old and new forest and a virgin meadow. There you see Pat Rasmussen's felt-covered Mongolian yurt, miraculously still standing.

Rasmussen, a world traveler, moved to the Witch Mountain area to live close to the forest and see how the animals interact. A phone line connects her to the EcoNet, where she can communicate with the whole world with her solar-powered laptop computer.

She had come to know her neighbors--a certain squirrel, a chipmunk, a salamander--who came to visit her every day. She didn't feed her animal friends, she says, because she didn't want to interfere with their natural process.

But since the Rat Creek fire, Rasumussen's habitat has been unnaturally altered by man. Her natural meadow was bulldozed down to the dirt to create a firebreak. Caterpillar tractors have etched a couple new roads in her land.

The fire was a painful experience, she says. Her land had been pretty much untouched, pristine and beautiful.

But it's not the burned part that bothers her. She always knew a lightning strike might come. If she hadn't had neighbors, her choice would have been to let the fire sweep across her land.

It's the fact that the fire was human-caused that has filled her with conflicting feelings, she says.

She has to get used to things looking different now. She's used to the green and the healthy.

But she knows fire is part of the forest system, a phase of the forest she is willing to live with and in. She went there to learn, she says.

As she surveys her land and the damage that was done, she sees her neighbors--squirrel, chipmunk and salamander. They're still there.

And so is she.

For Northwest Public Radio, I'm Diane De Rooy.