T
wo brick chimneys, crooked and lonesome, rise over the charred wreckage of Brad McGaha and Kelley Ralston’s former home. Along Old Highway 97, south of Malott in north-central Washington, other solitary chimneys mark other missing houses like fresh graves in an immense cemetery. Fast-moving fire has stained the hills, blackening miles upon miles of forest and grassland, flashing homesteads out of existence, recasting a valley in destruction. Smoke still hangs on the ridges, flavoring the air with ash. Downed power lines crisscross the barren fields. For 82 years, the McGaha home stood amid a small orchard overlooking the Okanogan River and surrounding valley. Ralston says it burned in a matter of hours. “The house just went up,” she says. “It was so chaotic. It was awful.” McGaha, 50, says he has lived in the house most of his life. His grandfather built it in 1932. Ralston, 47, a nurse from Seattle, moved into the home last year after they got engaged. While they had closely watched for updates on the approaching fire, the flames crested the nearby ridge with little warning. “At least we were able to grab a few things off the wall,” McGaha says of their hurried evacuation. “I didn’t have much hope that anything would be there the next day.” McGaha says he watched the fire burn from across the river. With roads still closed the following morning, he surveyed the property using a pair of binoculars. Only the chimneys remained. The house, a shop, a barn and four other buildings were destroyed. “It was just overwhelming,” he says of the fire. “The sheer power and ferocity of it. … It’s pure fury. It’s just hard to explain.” Harsh scars now cleave the landscape, hills beyond hills gone black, bearing witness to an unholy spectacle of consumption. Ralston says the
community endured a “week from hell,” but McGaha notes he has also seen neighbors coming together, tremendous generosity and kindness from strangers. As residents take stock of the damage, many moments have proven both painful and humbling. “I’m just trying to take it day by day,” he says. “It’s devastating.”
FIGHTING FIRE
Screaming chainsaws drown out chatter along the fire line last week. Branches crack and snap as a yellow-clad fire crew patrols the line, cutting out trees and clearing back brush. The firefighters keep their heads down, their eyes on their work as crew boss Virgil Talks Different walks behind them, calling out directions for widening the remote trail at the base of a yet unburned ridge. “We are getting rid of the ladder fuels,” he explains, removing small brush that allows a fire to spread up into treetops. Talks Different and his crew hail from the Fort Belknap reservation in Montana, home to the Nakoda and People of the White Clay nations. They serve as one of 96 crews working the Carlton Complex Fire. With the arrival of last week’s rain, crews were taking advantage of the milder weather to reinforce the existing fire perimeter. As of Tuesday, the fire was 67 percent contained. Crews still have a lot of work to do. “Let’s go!” he shouts. No fire in the state’s history has burned as far and wide as the Carlton Complex Fire, first sparked on July 14 by a passing lightning storm. The immense blaze has now charred more than 250,000 acres in a misshapen, 400-square-mile diamond between the Methow and Okanogan rivers. ...continued on next page
Little remains of the McGaha home along Old Highway 97 after the Carlton Complex Fire swept through earlier this month.
JULY 31, 2014 INLANDER 23