By SUE RYAN
News staff writer
September 27, 2007

Officials still don’t know the causes behind two separate fires that started within a day of each other last week in the Columbia River Gorge.

Both fires were in Skamania County. The Broughton Fire began Thursday at 11:30 a.m. near State Route 14. The Stevenson Co-Ply Fire began at 12:15 p.m. on Friday.

The 150-acre Broughton Fire burned six homes and a barn near Underwood, Wash. Washington Department of Natural Resources crews were working on mopping up the fire Monday.

“The fire is 100 percent contained,” said Jim Monroe, DNR spokesman. “We have three fire investigators on the site and the preliminary report should be ready later this week.”

Although local fire agencies, including several from Hood River County, provided initial response to the blaze, because of the structures involved ultimately the incident fell under DNR’s jurisdiction.

Several people lost their homes in the fire, including an uninsured family who rented a house at the former Broughton Mill site. Hood River resident Lee Himes said his sister and brother-in-law, Dale and Janice Brooks, and their two children, lost everything they had.

“They had lived there for 20 years; that is a lot of memories,” he said. “The Red Cross is putting them up for now in a motel here but we don’t know yet what they are going to do when that money runs out.”

Gosnell Road resident Tad McGeer managed to snap a photo (at right) of a wall of flames encroaching upon his house just before he left the property.

His house burned down and he is now staying with friends in White Salmon. McGeer said while he noticed smoke just after 11 a.m. and checked in with 9-1-1, he didn’t pack anything right away because the information he got was limited.

“Perhaps I should have been more conservative; I don’t know. I know I got stuff into boxes when a sheriff’s deputy showed up at the door and said it might be a good idea to put stuff into boxes,” he said. “Then the tree exploded in front of the house and all I had time to do was grab my three dogs and get out.”

He was grateful to Cascade Pet Camp of Hood River for taking in two of his three dogs until he sorts things through. This week he said he is concentrating on replacing documents and finding a new place to live.

The remains of the Stevenson Co-Ply plant still smolder as smoke lingers in the air at the western edge of Hood River County.

DNR officials sent two helicopters down from the Broughton Fire to help with the Stevenson Co-Ply Fire.

The plant is a former mill, which closed in 1986. While the plant had been vacant for a number of years, the fire was intense partly due to the storage of tons of wood pellets on site from the Cascade Locks-based Bear Mountain Forest Products.

Cascade Locks Fire Chief Jeff Pricher said Washington State Department of Ecology officials were on site capturing and monitoring water runoff from the fire to see what toxins might be present or have been released by the burn.

Because of the two fires, Gorge fire crews were strained but Pricher said everything was covered adequately due to excellent mutual aid agreement cooperation between agencies.

“Because of the Forest Service’s 24-hour rule and their crews being involved with the Broughton Fire, Oregon Department of Forestry ended up taking over for the Stevenson Co-Ply plant and West Side Fire came down to cover us,” he said.

Pricher reported to the city council on Monday night about their role in providing mutual aid for the blaze.