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By Jim Flanagan, Sierra Star Correspondent,
North Fork.
I began writing this on the first night of the North Fork fire that began
on Road 274 (Malum Ridge Road) about two miles north of town.
Our
teenage grandson came to visit me at the Chamber office at the North Fork
Mill Site office building on Monday, August 20.
Around half past noon, as I was working at my desk, he looked out
the western office window and said, “Look, a fire.” I looked, and sure enough, there was a small column of smoke
coming up out of the northwest,
somewhere in the direction of Road 274.
Soon
after, tall flames appeared. I
called the Forest Service, and they said they’d send Curt Palmer, the
fire management officer, out to check on it.
Then I called Corky
Collins, who lives on Mono Wind Way, and she said the fire was just east
of her, down by Thunder Way. When
I checked back with her, she was getting ready to leave.
I called other people we know on Mono Wind Way and Thunder Way, but
no one answered.
By
now the earlier Bonnie B fire was under control, and equipment there went
to the new fire, which was growing rapidly.
More equipment with sirens. Road
274 was closed. More high
flames, and then thick black smoke followed by large billows of white
smoke. The fire kept getting
bigger, and the whole northwest sky was filled with columns and billows of
smoke, occasionally tinged with yellow and red from the fire below.
Now it was jumping back and forth
across both sides of the road, but mainly moving in a
northeast direction.
I
left the office after 3, took my grandson home, and then went to the North
Fork bus stop, for Yosemite High students coming home to North Fork,
because two of the students, Jessica and Moody Knotts, are part of a
family that I knew had been evacuated from Mono Wind Way.
They were not on the bus because they
got picked up by family at school.
At least they were safe.
At
the Post Office across the street I met friends who had been evacuated
from their home, and they had that glazed look that one gets when you do
not know if you will have a home to return to.
After
dinner, we started to check
on neighbors. A friend
jokingly kidded me about not inviting him to the
barbecue. One neighbor
who has a scanner said that, if the wind shifted to the south, as it does
usually at night, the fire would come toward us (we live on lower Cascadel).
The Forest Service thought
it would be a good idea to evacuate.
I certainly was not crazy about the thought of waking up in the
middle of the night with both cars exploding in the driveway. So I watered down our log house while my wife loaded our two
cars with basics and a few things that she wanted to save.
We
left, checked on the family of one of our daughters who lives across the
road, stopped to visit with another neighbor, and then went to Oakhurst to
spend the night with the mother-in-law of our son.
Her husband had a good sense of timing – he was golfing in
Nevada. As had been the case
in the later afternoon, people that night were lined up all along Road 225
(Mammoth Road) near the Mill Site, gawking at the fire, the flames
crackling and moving across the tree tops.
I briefly thought I was missing a chance to set up a hot dog stand.
A
Red Cross shelter had been set up at the Assembly of God Church , and the
Lyonzden Restaurant next door sent over food for the displaced people
there. Another Red Cross
center was set up at the Little Church of the Pines at Bass Lake.
I
got up early, around 4 a.m., and could smell the fire in the air.
I checked with the Forest Service.
The North Fork headquarters of the Minarets/Mariposa District was
the Fire Center, and was open all night providing information on the staus
of the fire to anyone who called. I
found out that the fire had not moved towards our home.
It is reassuring to have information graciously given so that you
do not have to be in a state of hopeless despair, not knowing
whether or not you will have a home to return to.
The
Sheriff’s Office assured people late Monday night that no structures had
burned down, but by Tuesday morning at least two had.
The fire crews were laying hoses in the directions of the fires for
structure protection.
Dawn
was now breaking, and so I left to return to my office, hoping that I
would find our townspeople and their homes still intact. On the way on Road 426, the sun rose like a red ball.
Flecks of ashes were in the air like tiny white mites.
By
8:30, additional CDF crews and water trucks headed up Douglas Ranger
Station Road. The fire was
now heading up the South Fork Bluffs.
By this time the sun sat on top of a mountain of
smoke. An inversion
layer had driven the smoke downso that you could only see five trees deep. I could not even see the planes or helicopters overhead.
An
hour later, two cats and more tankers chugged up Douglas Ranger Station
Road. A half hour after that,
a control chopper cruised over the area, and the smoke began to clear.
By 11 a.m., residents who lived west of Road 274 were allowed back
into their homes, but the homes on the east side were still under
structure protection.
By
this time, approximately 120 personnel had been assigned to the fire,
including crews from the coast and from southern California. Assigned equipment included 19 engines, 5 water tankers, 3
dozers, 2 air tankers, 5 helicopters, and a number of retardant- dropping
planes. Tuesday afternoon,
the Mill Site turned into a Fire Control for the fire crews. The fire continued in a north-easterly direction up the South
Fork Bluffs toward Whisky Falls and Peckinpah Meadow.
According
to former District Ranger Paul Rich, who has seen both poor and good
fire-fighting, “these fire-fighters are soing an excellent job.”
Mr. Rich currently is the Project Manager of the Coarsegold RCD’s
204 grant program for defueling and debrushing of high fuel areas.
The total grant was for $500,000, with the North Fork CDC getting
about one-fourth for erosion control and the CRCD the remainder for its
defueling project. Mr. Rich pointed out that the areas along Road 274 where the
property owners signed up for, and participated in, the program fared well
through the fire.
On
the previous Tuesday evening, August 14, the defueling project had a
meeting at the Mill Site to share stories about defueling and escape
fires. The humor of some of
those stories was lost in the subsequent fires.
What
is important to remember is that the CRCD’s defueling efforts prepared
us for this disaster that we knew would eventually come. As a result, only a couple of structures have been lost, and
no one was physically hurt (other than from smoke fumes) or killed as a
result of the fire. We are
indeed fortunate.
Another blessing is the way that our people have reached out to help
others. I’m glad North Fork
is my home.
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