Local firefighters were directly in the path of a fire
Wednesday that charred close to 450 acres near the west end of The Dalles.
The blaze caused the shutdown of Interstate 84 and railroad lines through
the area for four hours.
A wall of flame stirred into action by a swirling
pocket of wind flipped direction and rolled over the top of Hood River
County firefighters in its path at Exit 82.
No one was hurt but the hose bed for the Parkdale
engine caught on fire, which a tender from Odell put out. Parkdale Fire
Chief Mike McCafferty said Thursday the damage was moderate but that the
engine needed new air lines, hoses, paint and some mechanical work.
Parkdale Fire Chief Rod Blumenthal and firefighters
Darrin Routson and Kory Michaels were the firefighters on the Parkdale
engine.
Twenty firefighters manning six engines and brush rigs
from Odell, Pine Grove, Hood River, Cascade Locks, West Side and Parkdale
were all on site. West Side was dispatched to a division protecting houses
while the other rigs fought off the blaze from the middle of the freeway.
“We were there in front of the fire to protect the cars
and people trapped on the freeway,” said Devon Wells, assistant fire chief
for Hood River.
He said once Oregon State Police and Oregon Department
of Transportation highway workers had backed about two dozen rigs with
about 60 people as far east as possible, crews advanced into the field to
fight the fire.
“For 15 minutes there, it was a very tense situation,”
Wells said.
The tension came because the fire began to “run,” which
forced firefighters to abandon the field and head for the freeway. It was
the second such retreat as Wells said when they arrived on the scene, the
fire quickly jumped Highway 30 near the shooting range.
Wells said crews wet down a pickup and camper and the
engines and crews hunkered down to survive the fire that blew over the top
of them.
The fire caused damage to posts for guardrails and
signs as well as extensive damage to a railroad trestle. The cause of the
fire is thought to be from a “sleeper” fire that smoldered in Chenoweth
Canyon from a July 12 blaze. Crews were working on mopping up the fire and
checking for hot spots Thursday.
Other agencies that responded included Dallesport, Dufur, Mosier,
Sherman County, the Oregon Department of Forestry and the U.S. Forest
Service.
