By SUE RYAN
News staff writer
August 11, 2007

West Side Fire Department Captain Don Hoffman carried a plate heaped high with food to a table Aug. 8 at Stonehedge Gardens.

The occasion was no ordinary dinner but a celebration and thank-you from the restaurant’s owner, Mike Caldwell, to firefighters for their efforts that saved his establishment. Scorched earth and felled trees back up to the edge of Caldwell’s graveled parking lot where the 37-acre Frankton Road Fire burned on the afternoon of Aug. 4.

“We had said goodbye to the place and my wife and I were driving out crying,” Caldwell said.

Fire officials from county, state and federal agencies debriefed on the fire Aug. 9. All said the potential for the Frankton Road Fire to repeat itself is very high with tinder-dry conditions and fuel loads that could ignite with a single spark.

“It’s not if; it’s when we will have another fire,” said West Side Fire Chief Jim Trammell.

Trammell was one of several people who ran the operation to fight the fire Aug. 4. They coordinated a crew of 25 engines and 120 firefighters from a variety of agencies. He commended the Oregon Department of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service for their assistance.

Both were responding under a mutual aid agreement between agencies but because the fire was not on their lands the city and county were the lead groups. Trammell said he has been asked why helicopters or air tankers were not called in to fight the blaze.

“If we had had to order tankers, they would not have been here in time,” he said. “There is also the issue of cost; there would have been no mechanism for us to pay for them other than out of our budget. Safety also would have been an issue.”

The cost to use tankers would have been approximately $100,000. West Side Fire’s budget for the entire year is $250,000. The department doesn’t pay for most of its labor as the district relies on volunteers.

ODF fire official David Jacobs said the public may not understand that the city or county also doesn’t have the authorization to order tankers on their own; just request them.

“Retardant loads are managed by the state,” Jacobs said. “Also with having an air tanker come in that close over homes, there is the factor that any retardant dropped would have been spread over 200 homes and vehicles.”

Two years ago, the city of Cascade Locks was threatened by the Herman Creek fire. Air tankers were ordered in and the city ended up as one of three parties responsible for the $75,000 cost. They ended up paying it with Federal Emergency Management Agency monies.

What fire officials want people to realize is that prevention is critical to helping to prepare against potential wildfires. The fact that homeowners and property owners can take action to lessen the risk of wildfire involves taking the time or spending the money to create defensible space around a home. (See more details in the Aug. 15 edition).

Although the Frankton Road Fire was the largest that the fire officials could remember in history within the city limits, the potential was there for it to have been much worse.

“One of the things that helped was it (The Bungalows at Fox Hollow) was a brand-new subdivision where the landscaping was immature,” said USFS fire official Darren Kennedy, who works for the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area district.

They said if the fire had gotten into homes, it would have created a fuel-heavy situation that would have spread quickly and been extremely difficult to fight.

Hood River Fire Chief Jeff Walker said while the Frankton Road Fire took place on the west side of the city limits, the situation could have very easily happened on the east side where there are homes interspersed with brush and grass on steep slopes.

“It’s something we worry about every year, especially around the Fourth of July,” he said. “But ultimately if a landowner wants to protect their home, it is their responsibility to clear that vegetation away.”

Trammell said firefighters are trained to only defend what they can. If they assess the situation and determine they cannot fight the fire safely, they will move.