When Fire Comes

I jogged up the hill at the back of our property to try to locate the source of this new, intimidating smoke plume when my phone alerted. Watch Duty: New Wildfire. “Go Now” evacuations for the two main roads into my neighborhood. I turn and run back toward my house, texting our local fire coordinator. No side roads were mentioned in the evacuation alert. Does it include us?!?! My husband is on a wilderness trip, and he is our household contact for the local fire alert network.

You can prepare your property, but you can’t prepare emotionally for when the police come to say, “Get out now!”

I had been driving home from town when I noticed the smoke. It seemed too close to be from existing fires across the lake. The closer I get to home, the closer it looks. Scary close.I turned off the highway onto our frontage road and held my breath. I made another turn and exhaled in a moment of relief. It looks north of my neighborhood. As I bump down the gravel road 3/4 mile to my lane, it again appears to be in the state land right behind my house. I pulled into my garage and checked the Watch Duty app (the source of up-to-date wildfire information). The fire is not listed yet. So I went up the hill to see what I could see.

 My neighbor texts back that only the two roads are under Go Now Level Three evacuations. She hasn’t heard anything else yet. She asks if I can see flames. I show her this picture of the smoke plume on the 1000 acres of state land that borders my property. Then, at 2:20 pm, I received a text from Selkirk Fire and another from the county sheriff, each confirming the same information. The fire was reported at 1:22 pm.

Living in wildland fire country, we’ve prepared for this day. Inasmuch as you can prepare to flee a fire that could leave your home in ashes. I run into the house and grab our “go bag”. I toss in a few essentials from the “get out now” list – computer hard drives, important papers, and medicines and take the bag to my car. I was loading things into the car and clearing burnables off my deck (it turns out that I have a lot of flammable decor) and from the perimeter of the house, when my neighbor, in her car with her dogs, drove up. She says the police are at the end of our lane, telling us to go now! She asks if I need help getting the dogs into the car.

I went back into the house, closed all the windows, and grabbed my cat, who was asleep in his carrier (it’s one of his favorite spots). What a blessing! All I had to do was close the door and carry him to the car. I rounded up the dogs and ushered them into the car as the same neighbor drove back by. The sheriff told her we aren’t on Go status yet, but he thinks it’s imminent.

I let the dogs back in the house, pulled the car up to the front steps, and spent the next hour preparing to leave. My cat was content in the car for now, so I left him there. I pulled the curtains off the windows, moved things that were flammable away from windows and doors. I closed all of the interior doors. I threw some clothes into a suitcase. I moved the furniture off the decks and took down all of the grapevine wreaths adorned with bird nests and other natural curiosities. I watered down the mulch in front of the house and started the sprinkler. I hooked up the hoses for the firefighters and ensured I knew how to turn off the propane tank, which is the last thing I do before leaving. Then I stopped. 

In the hour it took me to make all of these preparations, the fire grew from 5 acres to 20 acres, “rapidly moving south”. I’ve done all of the necessary things. When confronted with “extra” time before having to evacuate for a wildfire, what do you do? Pack more stuff? I think I got all of the sentimental things, the hard-to-replace things, and the essential things. The rest is just stuff. (In the coming days, I will wonder why I have so many things that aren’t so important or necessary and make a trip to Goodwill).

When I stopped, I was flooded with all the emotion that my purposeful movement had kept at bay. Fear, grief, panic, overwhelm, apprehension, vulnerability. I called a friend for support. Blubbering, I let it all out. Then I ate and drank something. I talked to some neighbors. I began to feel better.

The aerial support was instrumental in stopping the spread of the fire. It sounded like a war zone at my house. Fire command deployed eight airplanes and two helicopters. We are lucky to have Pappy Boyington Field in Coeur d’Alene, where the US Forest Service has an air base, making aerial fire responses in North Idaho quick.

• Three Large Air Tankers spreading fire retardant carrying up to 4,000 gallons 
• A Super Scooper designed to operate in mountainous terrain and confined spaces, carrying 1,600 gallons per scoop. Able to fill its tanks in 12-15 seconds, and drop water from just 100 feet above the ground.
• Four Single Engine Scoopers, each carrying 800 gallons of water
• The Skycrane, a heavy-lift helicopter, carrying up to 2,650 gallons, fitted with a snorkel for refilling from shallow lakes
• A Chinook helicopter carrying 600-2000 gallons in a bucket

As evening approached, I walked back out to Lookout Hill to reassess the fire. The smoke and burn scar that I am looking at starts at the hill where I found my first mountain lion kill deer several falls ago, and runs south along the path I walk regularly with my dogs. Despite the Watch Duty surface wind direction pointing northeast, this fire is moving south.

Plane after plane after plane dumps thousands of gallons of Lake Pend Oreille water on the fire.

The skycrane makes pass after pass along the western edge of the fire. This is what’s keeping the fire from moving towards me.

Bright pink fire retardant covers the land along the edges of the fire. I can hear the chainsaws of the ground crews. The charred ground is dotted with occasional small flames. The response is impressive.

I hurry back home to dig my camera out of my packed car to memorialize this incredible fire response and stay on the hill until sunset. The last thing I saw was hand crews scrambling up the rocky terrain between me and the fire.

Nighttime conditions are better for fire control. It’s cooler, the humidity drops (think morning dew), and the winds die down. I’m cautiously optimistic that the fire is not going to blow up overnight. Still, I will also turn on all of the loud, buzzing, light-emitting notifications for text messages that could come from the local fire network, the sheriff’s department, Watch Duty, the fire district, and/or the Idaho Department of Lands. The sheriff’s department also goes door to door in evacuations to make sure everyone is out. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

The recent 3,000-acre Sunset Fire started on a Wednesday afternoon under red flag warning conditions. The initial fire response corralled it to the lake. The next day, the winds picked up again, and it ran four miles along the lake, torching trees and throwing spot fires up to 1/4 mile away!

The lesson is two-fold: under much worse fire weather conditions than today, the fire response kept that fire from any more structures after it left Sunset Rd. These fire teams are amazing. Secondly, fires can move far, fast. Today’s fire is less than 1/2-mile from my home.

The evening fire update puts today’s fire at 40 acres. The Level 3: Go – Now evacuations are rescinded, and we are all put on Level 1: Get Ready evacuation status. The next morning, 120 people are working on this fire. The aerial support is no longer needed. Still, I take my pets to work with me in my packed car. The fire grows to 48 acres, but by the evening of the second day, all evacuation orders are lifted.

It’s been a week since the fire started. It’s 100% contained, and the fire crews are mopping up, cutting snags, and making sure there are no hotspots that could reignite. Rain is in the forecast. With a rapid, robust response led by the Idaho Department of Lands, this fire stayed on undeveloped land. No structures were lost. The more I see of North Idaho firefighting efforts, the more confident I become in their abilities, even against formidable odds. But I don’t need to see them working this close again any time soon.

Every place has its natural disaster risks: hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, wildfires. We mitigate the risks the best we can. Wildland fire is overwhelmingly the natural disaster risk faced in the West on the wildland-urban interface. Currently, more than 32 percent of homes in the United States stand in a wildland-urban interface. As more people move and build, and the climate warms, more and more people will find themselves in the same situation when fire comes.

If you’re interested in purchasing or licensing any images you see here, please email me at SNewenham at exploringnaturephotos.com, and I’ll make it happen.

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