A Close Encounter with Wildfire

Joe Meche is a past president of the North Cascades Audubon Society and is still active in chapter affairs.He has been watching birds for more than 60 years and photographing birds and landscapes for more than 40 years. He has written more than 140 articles for Whatcom Watch.

The term wildfire is one that we generally use when referring to forest fires, range fires, brush fires, etc. The similarity between these different types of fire is that they are uncontrolled burns in areas of dry, combustible vegetation, usually in wilderness or sparsely populated locations. When conditions are right, the speed and destructive nature of these fires make them difficult to contain. Wildfires have become one of the more recent political footballs as agencies, organizations, and scientists differ on forest management practices and the preemptive value of controlled burns, given the overall cyclical nature of wildfire outbreaks.

There is no disagreement, however, on the destructive impacts of fires that seem to be more commonplace these days. Whether the root cause is linked to climate change or land management practices, wildfires exact a tremendous toll in loss of life and property every year. Vital habitats and entire ecosystems can suffer extensive damage. In some cases the damage is reversible but that’s a minor bright spot. In the West, summer is known as fire season, much like hurricane season in the Atlantic and Gulf Coast states or tornado season in the Midwest.

The necessary ingredients for any fire, even a simple campfire, are heat, oxygen and fuel. Fire can be prevented or extinguished by removing any of the three. When all the ingredients are present, all that’s needed is an ignition source, which can be natural or man-made. Lightning strikes cause most of the wildfires in the West, while unattended campfires and even arson contribute to the mix. Summer is also camping season and more people are out enjoying time away from home, complete with the stereotypical campfire as an integral part of the experience. As conditions are assessed throughout the fire season, however, campfires might be prohibited for safety concerns.

What started out for us as an expected hot weather camping trip in mid-July turned into much more than we’d anticipated when we left home. Our last grandkid camping trip of the summer season was planned far in advance to return to Alta Lake State Park. The deep, cold water of the lake would be our focus for beating the heat, especially around mid-day when temperatures were expected to reach into the triple digits. No amount of planning, however, could have prepared us for the Carlton Complex fire, which would become the largest wildfire in Washington state history in only four days time.

I arrived at our campsite early on Monday morning, after a relatively warm night at the Klipchuck Campground below Washington Pass. My plan was to set up before the midday heat and get down to the lake. I succeeded in beating the heat, and by mid-afternoon clouds had moved in with a few sprinkles and rolling thunder. I welcomed the brief respite from the heat. I spoke to a park ranger later who said that the thunderstorm had produced dry lightning, and that statement unknowingly foretold the chain of events that would unfold over the next few days.

When Cindy arrived that evening with the grandkids, they told me their exciting story about driving through a fire. My grandson took photos of the first helicopters on the scene, scooping water out of the Methow River to attempt dousing the flames. Larger aircraft began to drop fire retardant on the blaze, just across the river from their vantage point. This was the beginning of the big fire that still burns as I write this, more than three weeks after it began. All very exciting but, needless to say, this camping trip was off to an interesting start.

As the days went by, heat continued to increase along with the amount of smoke in the air. We assumed that it was just blowing our way from the fires they had seen and we would just have to deal with it. I continued my camping routine, which always includes at least a couple of hours of hiking at sunrise to look for birds. The activity at the boat launch area was even busier than on previous visits: swifts, swallows, eastern kingbirds and cedar waxwings were busy catching flying insects, while American coots and pied-billed grebes were showing their new chicks around the lake. A pleasant surprise was a male ruddy duck that displayed shyness typical of that species. Judging from previous visits, it seemed like everything was normal with all the usual avian suspects in all the right places.

On our third day, we decided to help the grandkids overcome the inevitable teenage ennui of camping with grandparents by taking a day trip to Chelan. This turned out to be a good idea, since our campground had become even smokier than the day before. We were able to enjoy the clear, cold water of Lake Chelan without smoke, although we could now see smoke in the opposite direction from yet another fire, west of Leavenworth. It was summertime east of the Cascades and everyone seemed used to the idea of having fires around.

The morning after our trip to Chelan was very smoky. My tent was sporting a noticeable coating of ash and, again, it just seemed to be part of the scene. However, my morning plan to hike to the ridge above Alta Lake was short-lived because the visibility was so poor. The air was thick with smoke, so it probably wasn’t good for my lungs, either. We and the other campers went about our day in the smoky and surreal surroundings, totally unaware of the drama that lay ahead.

Toward the end of another very hot and smoky day, Cindy and I took our kayaks out for an evening paddle on the lake. While we were on the water, we noticed a dramatic shift in the wind as we turned to head back to the boat launch area. Huge columns of new smoke were now rising from the ridges to the north and across the Methow Valley. What we saw from the lake that evening was ominous, to say the least. I rarely use the word apocalyptic, but these were images meriting that description. The entire northern horizon was a wall of smoke, with billowing columns rising to block out the sun and large flakes of ash raining down on the lake as we paddled.

The novelty of being able to see and photograph the sun as a beautiful orange with the smoky filter quickly dissipated as we became aware that the situation was changing dramatically and rapidly. When our grandchildren came running down to meet us at the boat launch, excitedly telling us that they were seeing the flames from the fire, we knew that our day was taking on a new look. We drove to the crest of the ridge north of the Alta Lake Golf Course and it was then that we knew it was time to go.

The entire ridge across the river was a continuous line of fire, pushed by the wind and heading our way, as well as down into the nearby town of Pateros. The day became increasingly dark as we began to strike camp and load our gear in response to what had become a Level 3 evacuation order. The entire state park campground became the scene of a large and orderly exodus of campers, leaving on the only road that was still open. It was as dark as midnight when we reached the roadblocks and signs that sent us down the road to safety, sixty miles away.

The Carlton Complex fire covered over 250,000 acres and destroyed more than 300 homes. It continued to burn and threatened to expand northeast of Winthrop, as of August 8. Communications were disrupted for a length of time and many lives were left in shambles. According to reports gleaned from a number of sources, our campground was “consumed by fire” within two to three hours after we left. In retrospect, we dodged a fiery bullet.