As fires in the western United States continue to make the news, I am reminded again of my first western fire experience.
I had been with the U.S. Forest Service for a little over three years – and had been on several local fires – but nothing like what was ahead.
On Aug. 25, 1970, several of us firefighters on the local Cheoah Ranger District were shipped to Washington State, to fight a 118,000 acre fire on the Wenatchee National Forest.
Jack Coleman, Tim Roberts, Hoot Gibbs, Randy Shook, G.D. Phillips, Ted Myers and I were sent to the Entiat Ranger District, where the Cougar Mountain, Signal Peak and Boiling Springs fires had burned together to create one huge wildfire.
Jimmy Lovin, Gudger Jenkins, Jim Burchfield, Geter Burchfield, Ivan Carpenter and Arnold Tipton were assigned to the Slide Ridge fire.
We were burned out of the fire camp the first night, when the fire broke over control lines. We had just settled down in our paper sleeping bags on hard ground when someone yelled for us to get out of there. We started running down a dirt road – with fire spitting across the road, which left us fleeing between two walls of fire.
Tim had gotten into the rear seat of a crew-cab vehicle and was wondering why the driver didn’t take off, when he realized he was the only one in the vehicle.
We made it to safety, but I don’t think anyone slept any the rest of the night.
The fire jumped the only road into the area where we were and the smoke was so thick that aircraft could not fly into our area. We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were completely cut off from all outside resources. We began to run out of food and were eating lima beans for breakfast. Nights were cold, but we
managed to use shelter from black plastic strung over some poles. We named it the “Hoot House.”
One night – before we went to bed – the sky was blood red from the fire. Someone remarked about it not looking too good.
Later in the night, G.D. had a nightmare and began yelling that the fire was coming. As he crawled past me, I saw that he had his boots on and somehow he had managed to put on a hooded sweatshirt backwards. I had looked outside and saw that everything was okay. When G.D. got outside and the cold air hit him, he woke up. We kidded him about getting dressed before he warned us.
With the help of air tankers, helicopters, dozers and 12,000 fire fighters, we finally gained control of our section of the fire and returned home safely on Sept. 7.
Marshall McClung is the historical columnist for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, mcclungs@email.com.