"Firestorm 2014" sample

Acknowledgements Writers: Al Camp, Dee Camp, Sheila Corson, Roger Harnack, Brock Hires, Chelsea Johnson Editors: Al Camp, Dee Camp, Roger Harnack, Chris Thew Photo Contributors: Al Camp, Dee Camp, Doug Camp, Sheila Corson, Tarrie Darwood, Teri Emery, Sue Gessel, Roger Harnack, Brock Hires, Lena Howe, Joel Kretz, Jeff Lyman, Jason Paulson, Tom Reichner, Joe Somday, Tori Stone Publishers: Roger Harnack, Teresa Myers Layout Artist: Lena Howe This book is dedicated to the Okanogan County residents and emergency personnel who truly showed courage under fire during Firestorm 2014. They didn’t wait for outside help – they took care of each other. Combined, their efforts saved countless lives and their convictions have started to change the way our publicly owned forests are managed.

Copyright © 2016 The Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle

Author’s Note

No one could ever write all the tales that could be told about the Carlton Complex wildfire.

The miraculous survivals, the tragic losses, the sacrifices, the beating hearts that waited to hear the next update, watching the news, tracking on Facebook, texting and calling and praying and hoping.

For Okanogan County, it’s like the day John F. Kennedy was shot. Or like 9/11. Everyone here will remember where they were and what they were doing when the fires that grew together started sweeping through the south county.

There were accurate reports, there were fairy tales and there were lies. How many times did Pateros Community Church burn down? According to Facebook, at least three. How many times did Tyler Copenhaver lose his home at Alta Lake? He was called about six times to say it was gone – it’s still standing.

Sorting through the stories and myths takes some doing. I hope we have done that with due diligence, bringing in every aspect of the story from first responders to evacuees, from residents to businesses to government agencies, and from Alta Lake to the Methow and Malott, and everywhere in between.

The scope is overwhelming.

Everyone knows there was a fire. But not everyone knows the true story – that it devoured 256,108 acres, claimed two lives and destroyed land and homes and dreams. Despite the destruction, it couldn’t devour or destroy the spirit of this county.

As the earth begins to heal, so do the people. Homes spring up where others were lost. Buds pop fromfire-scarred earth.

Resilience. Hope. Renewal.

To all those who lost in the wildfire, to all those who served in the conflagration, go our greatest thanks and honor. May we continue to show ourselves strong.

Sheila Corson

Contents Prologue.................................................6 Chapter 1: The Firestorm Begins...........11 Chapter 2: Pateros.................................25 Chapter 3: Brewster...............................42 Chapter 4: Chiliwist................................48 Chapter 5: Alta Lake...............................59 Chapter 6: Malott...................................68 Chapter 7: Relief Efforts.........................80 Chapter 8: Rising Eagle Fire...................89 Chapter 9: Aftermath.............................97 Chapter 10: Recovery Continues..........112 Epilogue.................................................128

Prologue

B

lue skies. Sunshine. Temperatures hotter than 100 degrees.

A few columns of smoke rise from the earth after lightning strikes.

Monday, July 14, 2014, was a typical summer day in Okanogan County, in North-Central Washington. Fire crews were quashing small fires ignited by a passing thunderstorm – a somewhat common occurrence during summer.

Before long, the dozens of small fires were reduced to only four small

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fires on public land managed by state agencies. So far, no one had tackled those, but state officials didn’t expect them to become a problem. In fact, an aircraft from the North Cascades Smokejumper Base near Winthrop reported two of them to the state Department of Natural Resources that day, asking if Natural Resources would like a jump on the fires.

Agency representatives sent them off to another fire in Oregon. Besides, there were dozens and dozens of other lightning-sparked fires across the state that needed attention, too.

Within two days, Natural Resources crews were fighting 86 fires, including the 22,000-acre Mills Canyon Fire near Chelan. The drought of the last year had turned the countryside into a tinderbox.

Meanwhile, the remaining fires in Okanogan County smoldered, growing slowly and causing little

alarm. Some local residents built fire lines around two of the four fires with their personal equipment. Natural Resources crews said they were monitoring the Cougar Flat Fire east of Winthrop, which a few local residents had just about put out. At 50 percent extinguished and 100 percent contained, the crew left it. But Cougar Flat released a burning log that rolled past fire lines and started the land ablaze again.

The two fires the smokejumpers saw — Stokes Road and French Creek, both on the east side of the Methow Valley near Carlton, along with the fourth – Golden Hike on the west side of the Methow River near Carlton — took off with gusty winds that came up Thursday, July 17. The flames raced past fire lines and grew.

Lifelong Methow Valley resident and Okanogan County Commissioner Ray Campbell traveled to incident

command centers, fire sites and other locations to get crews moving to fight the wildfires. State fire managers said they thought they had a handle on it.

Almost everyone thought they could get a handle on it. They were wrong.

Those four little fires grew and merged into the largest wildfire in state history, destroying 237 homes and 53 cabins, plus outbuildings and barns, automobiles and boats, farm machinery, and hundreds of miles of fences and power lines. It left a 256,108-acre burn-scarred area — 400 square miles — that will take years to recover.

But no one expected that.

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Carlton Complex Fire Fire began

July 14, 2014

(Four fires, later merged into one; Aug. 1 Rising Eagle Road later added to complex) Fire cause

Lightning

(Rising Eagle human-caused) Deaths

2

(Medical conditions during fire; one a stroke, the other from a fall)

256,108 Forest Service 80,564

Bureau of Land Management 6,157

Acreage burned

70,215

Private 99,082 Square miles burned 400

State

7.6 700-1,000

Percent of county land burned Cattle killed (estimated) Homes destroyed 237

17

Brewster School District

Methow Valley School District

Okanogan School District

Pateros School District 131

36

53

Cabins destroyed 53 Assessed value of structures lost

$2.82 million Okanogan School District $5.4 million Methow Valley School District $4.97 million Pateros School District $14.67 million Brewster School District

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Greatest growth

123,159 acres during a

nine-hour period July 17

3.8 acres per second Okanogan County dispatch calls, July 14,066 Normal month 6,000-7,000 911 calls, July 4,218 Estimated speed, at peak

911 calls July 14 911 calls July 15 911 calls July 16 911 calls July 17 911 calls July 18

446 400-plus 400-plus 1,041 1,186

Okanogan County Public Utility District losses

$14 million-plus 341 miles of distribution line damaged or destroyed

1,005 distribution poles replaced 59 miles of transmission line and 106 poles 60 miles of fiber optic cable and 12 wireless access points

Electricity off to Methow Valley

8 days for most, 27 days for all A mid-August map shows the daily progression of the fire | Map by Carlton Complex Incident Command

Firestorm 2014 | 9

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Plumes start to rise in Okanogan County |

Chapter 1

The Firestorm Begins

M

onday, July 14, 2014, started out as a typical hot summer day in Eastern Washington.

But to the west, ominous clouds were building. A fast-moving thunderstorm was approaching.

Residents went about their everyday business. Working, shopping, playing.

They didn’t know the tempest on the horizon would ignite the largest wildfire in state history.

The storm rolled over North-Central Washington, including Okanogan County, early in the afternoon. Lightning strikes were being reported around the region. Following the strikes, small plumes of smoke started to rise. Reported lightning strikes and fires were coming into dispatch centers, newspapers and radio stations.

In Okanogan County, fires were reported at Bear Canyon, Gold Creek (two fires), Fuzzy Canyon, West Buck Mountain, Upper Beaver Creek, Cougar Flats, Texas Creek and Stokes Road, with most in the Methow Valley in the western portion of the state’s largest county.

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