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Air Service to San Francisco Sealed Page 5
Bellevue’s Labor Day Celebration Page 9
Fire Rehab Starts Page 16
A u g u s t 2 8 , 2 0 1 3 • V o l . 6 • N o . 3 5 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Our Thanks To The People Of The Wood River Valley FROM BETH LUND
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s our work on the Beaver Creek Fire winds down and we prepare to transfer command of the fire to Marty Adell’s Type 2 Incident Management Team, our Great Basin Type I Incident Management Team wants to thank the people of the Wood River Valley for your hospitality and support over the past two weeks. The people of Ketchum, Hailey, Sun Valley, Bellevue and every community threatened by this fast-moving fire have every reason to be proud of their patient and intelligent response to this crisis. Fire has a place in the natural world, but it can be disruptive and frightening when it threatens our homes, our lives and the natural treasures of our public lands. Hundreds of you, both residents and visitors, had to postpone recreational activities because of area closures in the Sawtooth National Forest. Many were forced to leave your homes as the fire crept close to Baker Creek and blew into Greenhorn Gulch, Deer Creek and Croy Creek Canyon and down the face of Carbonate Mountain. Despite these hardships and stresses, you expressed your gratitude to wildland firefighters in myriad ways. The appreciation was visible, whether it was a sign on a roadside fence or a banner strung across a city street. One resident painted thanks on the roof of a house so our helicopter and fixed-wing pilots could see it. We felt the warmth at overflow community meetings and in our interactions at information boards up and down the Highway 75 corridor. Your nurturing was conveyed by the brownies, cookies and other treats delivered to camp and in the countless complimentary cups of coffee your baristas and convenience store clerks poured for our hard-working troops. It was obvious when a simple appeal at a public meeting generated thousands of bandanas from around the country for our firefighters. And the spirited shout-outs by Wood River High School cheerleaders was a fire-camp first for most of us! Perhaps the most meaningful gestures are the ones that bring lasting benefits — the kind that ensure our safety and yours. The willingness of residents to work with our structure support groups to create defensible spaces around their homes and property kept damage to a minimum during this especially challenging fire. And we’ll never know how many lives were saved when you cooperated with pre-evacuation warnings and evacuation orders on the fire’s most active perimeters. We’re especially moved by the contributions to the Wildland Firefighters Foundation, including that of three local girls who sold homemade cookies to raise more than $1,300 for the Boise-based nonprofit that supports the families of fallen and injured firefighters. We hope you’ll consider making a similar donation. (Learn more about the organization at 208-336-2996 or by visiting www.wffoundation.org.) Be proud of your communities. We all look forward to the day when we can return with our families and enjoy the national forests and wilderness areas you understandably cherish, as well as the hospitality of your great communities. SEE RELATED STORY ON BETH LUND ON PAGE 24
Beth Lund, From Hotshot to Incident Commander
read about it on PaGe 24
BEAVER CREEK FIRE
Fresh Air Brings Optimism STORY & PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
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red Wager had been monitoring evacuation warnings all day on Friday, Aug. 16, as fire crested the ridge above his home in Cold Springs. When he finally realized a 7:15 p.m. evacuation order had been issued for his home three miles south of Ketchum, smoke had closed Highway 75 at Elkhorn Road, East Fork Road and Ohio Gulch Road. “I couldn’t go south. I couldn’t go north. So I just turned my lights off and went to bed,” he said. The Beaver Creek Fire, which started with a single lightning strike in grass and sagebrush northwest of Hailey about midnight Wednesday, Aug. 7, gave Wood River Valley residents a case of heartburn over the two weeks that followed. On Aug. 15, smoke columns built up, breaking down and collapsing inside of themselves, sending downdrafts and gusts every which way as the fire raged through the Greenhorn neighborhood south of Ketchum. When the smoke cleared, one home was gone and everyone wondered how firefighters could possibly have saved 19 others. The next day the fire lapped at the backyards of neighborhoods along Highway 75 north of Hailey, flames so hot they melted meters in the Starweather subdivision. “As a firefighting community, we’re still mourning the loss of those 19 firefighters in Yarnell, Ariz., so we’re really preaching about the ways to get in there and do your job safely and the need to fall back when necessary,” said Fire Information Officer Shauna Hartman. “That’s what makes it all the more remarkable when you see the homes that were saved, given the way the fire burned.” Driveways in East Hailey and Bellevue began to look like used parking lots as residents of nearly 3,000 evacuated homes moved in, their cars and trucks piled high with clothes, treasured art and family scrapbooks. Sioux Essence evacuated from her home on Buttercup Road north of Hailey Friday afternoon. Before the night was out, she’d be evacuated from her friend’s home near Carbonate Ridge. She went to the Red Cross shelter set up at the Community Campus and then to her son’s home in Bellevue, which was stuffed to the gills with people, before returning to her friend’s home when that evacuation was lifted. “The shelter was actually very comfortable,” she said. “They even had snacks and computers.” Hailey travel agent Katja Casson took a bunny with an eye infection into her home—one of dozens of people who took in cats, dogs, horses and even chickens as
The area around Clarendon Hot Springs out Deer Creek Canyon is an oasis in the aftermath of the fire.
the Sun Valley Animal Center and residential neighborhoods were evacuated. The animal shelter, forced to evacuate as fire lapped at its fence, found new temporary homes for its animals as far away as the animal shelter in Boise where some were immediately adopted. The bike path near Greenhorn was covered with moose and other big animal scat—evidence of animals that had escaped the fire to the west. Disconcerted birds trolled around in the dirt at the feet of firefighters at Fire Camp. And the hospital, forced to move a handful of patients out as fire closed in, began treating firefighters for knee injuries, ankle sprains, heat exhaustion and smoke-related problems. NBC News Correspondent Miguel Almaguer created a stir among some of the women at Fire Camp when he showed up, adopting the rock star stance that he has put in front of fire stories throughout the season as the NBC News crew sets up on the bike path overlooking the barley field. “I have a cartoon that shows how it would be if reporters covered fires the way they cover hurricanes,” said Fire Information Officer Rudy Evenson, alluding to the newsreels of reporters hanging valiantly onto poles as hurricane-force winds stretch their lips into the size of Frisbees. “It’s got them saying: ‘It’s really hot. Oh, I’m on fire!’ ” Could it be subsiding? By Tuesday, Aug. 20, there were 1,800 firefighters fighting the Beaver Creek Fire—10 percent of the 18,000 people
fighting 51 massive fires in the West. The fire had claimed one home and a couple cabins. More remarkably, officials pointed out, more than 5,000 structures had been saved. That afternoon the air cleared for the first time since the conflagration started. And, with the clearing air came a renewed optimism as people began to see light at the end of the tunnel. “The perfect storm is subsiding,” said Deputy Incident Commander Kim Martin. Firefighters clambered up the steep terrain on Carbonate Ridge, chopping down burning trees and putting them in blackened areas, being careful not to let them roll into the river below where they could pollute the water or ignite flammable cottonwood seeds. Ketchum Fire Chief Mike Elle railed against shake roofs in a community briefing, saying they had to go. But he also asked people not to call about smoke in places like Timber Gulch. We know it’s there. As long as it’s white, it’s okay, he said. A vendor from Wyoming began to hawk the first Beaver Creek Fire T-shirts out of a trailer parked near Fire Camp. Sun Valley announced it would offer a free ice show as a fundraiser for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. And Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall announced that Wagon Days was on. Running out of money Sun Valley’s gondola remained still as
continued, page 21
Intermountain Pro Rodeo Association
Finals Rodeo Sat & Sun Aug. 31 & Sept. 1 4 p.m., Nightly, at the Hailey Rodeo Park
{see page 3 for details}