FORT KENT, Maine — Hundreds of thousands of acres of forests are burning this summer in the Pacific Northwest destroying homes, timber, crops and accounting for several deaths in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
Maine Forest Service rangers and equipment have joined an international team of firefighters on the ground battling the 150,000-acre Okanogan Complex and Chelan Complex fires in Washington, the 15,000 National Creek Complex fire in Oregon and the 700-acre Last Inch fire in Idaho, according to the Incident Information System website.
“We have seven rangers in Western states that are working to help the other [forest service] agencies with a fairly significant fire problem,” Jeff Currier, regional forest ranger with the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, said last week. “We also have three fire engines we trucked out there from Maine.”
Among the rangers gone west is Wesley Hatch who has been on the Okanogan fire since Aug. 21.
“We’ve been in the thick of it doing structure protection and assessment,” Hatch said by phone from Washington last week. “We are there before the fire comes through and see what needs to be done to help protect the area.”
Hatch described the conditions on the ground as hot, dry and windy — perfect for fanning the large fires.
“These have been really fast moving fires with the high winds,” he said. “When you see it coming you just control it the best way you can.”
There had been some rain the previous day, Hatch said, and that helped the firefighters get some control over the fire which, as of Saturday, was 60 percent contained.
“But things can change [and] you can get things quieted down but with high winds the next day it can start to pick back up again,” he said. “So it may just be a break in the action.”
Days for the firefighters are long and accommodations rough — they often live in temporary tent cities.
“You work 16 hours a day,” Currier said. “It’s often hot, smoky and dusty in pretty rugged terrain.”
Lance Martin, district ranger from St. Francis, was preparing to head out to Oregon this past week to supervise a crew on one of the fire trucks shipped out from Maine.
“This is my 31st assignment out of state,” Martin said on the eve of his departure. “I’ve been a ranger 28 years and there are years I’ve made three trips out of state.”
Fighting fires out West is vastly different than here in Maine, according to Martin.
“The terrain is different and the fuel size is much greater [because] the trees are so much bigger out there,” he said. “The mountains are more steep, the roads are narrower to get into the fires, so fighting fires there is a lot tougher given all that.”
Hazards are all around, Martin said.
“We are very much at risk,” he said. “There is the fire, but there are also ‘snags’ where the fires burn out the bottoms of large trees and the next thing you know a breeze comes by and it can fall over.”
Even the simple act of getting to the fires presents a danger on those steep, twisty mountain roads, he said.
“You really have to keep on your toes,” Martin said.
“We do this for a host of different reasons,” Currier said. “These states and national parks are in dire need of resources and we understand if we ever need similar assistance [from them] we will get it.”
Fighting fires out West also provides invaluable training, he said.
“Our people get excellent training and experience on the large fires in the West and they can apply those skills in Maine,” Currier said. “Once you battle a 50,000 acre fire in Oregon, for example, the 5,000-acre fire in Maine does not look so big.”
Maine’s people and resources are managed very carefully, Currier said.
The three Maine fire engines, each with 300-gallon water tanks, hoses and pumps, that were sent west came from Masardis, Old Town and Rangeley, according to Currier. He said there are 27 fire trucks still in the state.
“Our No. 1 goal is to assure we can protect Maine first,” he said. “We have conference calls with the people out West daily [and] move things around but the home front always comes first and we would never put that in jeopardy.”
All travel and related costs associated with moving Maine firefighters and equipment out and back is reimbursed, he said.
Martin said he has seen plenty of fire devastation in his years as a ranger, and it never gets any easier.
“We will find carcasses of burned wildlife and that’s tough to see,” he said. “I’ve heard from the guys already out there that they have seen domesticated animals killed in the fires and I heard one farmer they met had lost half his herd of livestock and he assumed they had burned to death.”
But there also are happier endings and at least one Washington farmer has a group of Maine firefighters to thank for a combined rescue and wrangling operation.
“The guys found this horse meandering in a burned area the fire had already gone through,” Currier said. “They said it was acting quite skittish and confused, so they stopped to help it.”
The Maine firefighters, including Hatch, Brian Getchell and Michael Latti, took apples from their bag lunches and used them to coax the frightened animal to them.
They were able to lure the horse into a fenced in area and then found a plastic container that they filled with water from their own supply.
Before leaving the horse, the men left a note pinned to a fence post explaining what they had done and that the Maine and Red Rock, Minnesota, firefighters had been there.
“Why not stop and help like that?” Hatch said. “My wife has horses and if someone saw one in a similar situation that had been through something like a fire, I’d hope they would help out.”
Hatch said they later ended up making contact with the horse’s owner and were assured the animal was fine.
“They were pretty pumped up to do that,” Currier said. “It really made them feel good to know they were making a difference and, as an agency we could not be prouder of them [because] it would have been easy to drive by and say, ‘It’s not our problem.’”
The photos of the horse rescue have made the rounds on social media and Hatch said he has gotten many comments on them.
“I’m kind of surprised how popular they’ve been,” he said. “We were just happy to help.”
