and relentless wind, the fires exploded. Pat called Don in the morning to tell him to come home, and called her daughter in Hood River. “I said, ‘I think this one is going to get us,’” she recalled. Unable to land his plane at the Twisp airport that afternoon because of smoke and flight restrictions due to all the aircraft called in to fight the fire, Don landed at Brewster and found a ride to the valley with someone he’d never met. “Driving up the valley, the hills were filled with individual fires. At one point the fire was blowing over the top of the truck — you could feel the heat,” Don said. Pat had taken her three horses to a neighbor’s house earlier in the day as a precaution, but didn’t feel panicky. She was gathering a few belongings, but not rushing. “I was watering house plants — wasn’t that a nice thing?” She could see smoke billowing into the sky, but it appeared to be some distance away. “I don’t think the fire had jumped Highway 20 yet,” Pat said. At about 3 p.m. a friend, Bob Ulrich, burst into the house and said, “Pat, you don’t have much time.” Jolted into action, she began moving quickly. Don arrived and took photos of the house and shop and their belongings, which proved “invaluable” in filing their insurance claims. Then Pat got a call from her daughter, who had driven from Oregon and was waiting at the entrance to Finley Canyon, where firefighters had stopped traffic from entering. “She said, ‘If you don’t leave now, you’re not going to make it,’” Pat remembers. The couple gathered their computer, some clothes, a file cabinet with
important papers, photo albums and their dog and drove away from their home. “We never knew we wouldn’t come back to it,” Pat said.
Feeling fortunate
Although they lost almost everything in the fire, the Owenses feel fortunate, they said in an interview four months later. Their insurance company quickly settled with them, including paying to rebuild fences, and covering rent for the Owenses and board for their horses until they can rebuild their lives. “We had a lot of options after the fire. We were thinking we had a blank palette,” Pat said. The couple left the valley for a while to stay with Pat’s daughter in Oregon. “We came back because we needed the love and support of this community,” Pat said. “We were in shock for a while, but then you … make your peace with it,” Don said. “It’s like going back 12 years and starting all over. We probably had more energy 12 years ago.” “We needed it, because now we don’t have to deal with grandma’s slides,” joked Pat. The couple has decided to rebuild on their property next spring. Their home’s foundation is sound, and they will create a house much like the one they lost. They expect to incorporate building materials, such as stucco and concrete, and landscaping that is less vulnerable to fire, they said. The morning after the fire, when they returned to the charred remains of their home and saw Don’s windmill still standing, “we felt that was an omen,” Don said. “We still feel at home there. There’s still an attachment,” he said. ❖
Flames race along the ridgeline above Finley Canyon. PHOTO COURTESY PAT AND DON OWENS
The landscape smolders around the Owenses’ home after the fire. PHOTO COURTESY PAT AND DON OWENS
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Exploring Fire in the Methow through Art, Literacy, Science, Social Studies, Math and Character Education.
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TRIAL BY FIRE 71