Fire Storm

Disaster Close to Home

Labor Day Monday was forecast to be windy, so I decided to run a few errands then hide out in the basement and can tomatoes. I had already been interrupted by a two-hour power outage, and was just getting restarted when my neighbor came into my canning kitchen. He was ashen faced and visibly shaken. He said, “The fire has burned Pine City and is moving toward Sunset and here! Our rental house is destroyed.” I quickly turned off the stove and went upstairs. I could see the smoke from our front porch; it looked like it was just over the ridge to our north. The house across the street appeared to be sort of a marshalling area for our volunteer fire department. One volunteer was going door to door telling everyone to pack a bag and be ready in case we needed to evacuate. I recognized a couple other men who I knew lived in Pine City. Ken said his house was still there when he left, but much of the village was aflame. Joe followed him over and said with a defeated look, “My house is gone.” Then he got in his truck and drove off. My wife began packing family photos, insurance policies and other documents as I watched the smoke cloud until I determined the fire was moving to the west, and we would be spared. We turned on the TV and saw the reports of the devastation in Malden. Two miles down wind, Pine City was hit just as hard, but the reporters stopped in Malden. There was no need to go farther to report the devastation.

Tuesday morning was eerie. It reminded me of the morning after Mt St Helens or the day following 9-11. Everything was quiet, not a breath of wind only the faint smell of smoke. I walked out to get the paper at 6:30 and met our friend walking his dog. He too, looked weary, defeated, and in shock. He had been out until two in the morning saving “the home place” from the fire. He said Pine City was hit hard, but the only details he related were, “Nate’s new house was gone.” And one of the two grain elevators had burned.

We had a doctor’s appointment in Spokane that morning and our regular route is through Pine City. When we got to the outskirts, barricades blocked our path, so I took the back roads through Thornton to the highway. Returning from Spokane later that afternoon I took our normal route south until I came to the “road closed signs” on the north side of Pine City. The pickup in front of us went around the barricades, and not wanting to backtrack twenty miles, I followed. The scene was surreal.

There is a deep valley where Wells Cutoff meets the Pine City Malden road. The fire had burned both sides of the valley, but the house and buildings had been spared. My friend’s home place was just down the road. Once again, the fire had burned the fields; but the firemen, with the aid of local farmers, had saved the house and out-buildings. I saw much the same thing several times. Volunteer firemen had thrown themselves in the path of the inferno and saved home after home after home, but the fire overwhelmed them in the village. As I drove through Pine City, the only structures still standing were Sharon’s rental house, the Grange Hall and one of the two grain elevators. Everything else was ashes.

The historic old stone church where we had enjoyed Christmas concerts was a pile of rocks. The brick house on the corner by the creek was just a shell. The huge galvanized grain storage silo had collapsed, and the road was blocked by a 30-foot pile of smoldering grain. A year’s work for many local farmers was a pile of smoking debris. Disaster had become personal. I knew these people. They were my friends. Some had been my students, and I had worked harvest with others. These are strong resilient people, but I don’t know if the villages of Malden and Pine City can survive. Life will go on, but they will be changed forever.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free-lance columnist for over 20 years.