Fighting the Fires

Fires throughout Lake County have kept emergency personnel busy for the past two weeks, and on Tuesday, more fires erupted. 

Chief Cliff, Rollins, Polson and tribal firefighters responded to a blaze reported near Dayton Creek in the Lake Mary Ronan area.

The fire was at two acres Tuesday afternoon. The Department of Natural Resources and Conservation took over fire management when its crews arrived on scene about an hour later after local crews were on the scene.

In addition to the Dayton Creek fire, six structures burned and more than a dozen lightning-strike fires sprung up across the valley this week. Clint Cottle, Polson City Fire Chief, said Polson City, Rural and Tribal Division of firefighters began fighting Mother Nature at about 7 p.m. Monday. The first lightning-caused fire struck a grassy area near the Ridgeway Development and ultimately engulfed about three acres.

When the fire first started, heavy wind pushed the blaze north toward one of the high-end homes in the area. No evacuations were made, Cottle said, though police agencies did assist the effort by notifying area homeowners and businesses of the fire.

“We were able to get a fairly quick handle on it and get it stopped before it crossed the road,” Cottle said. The fire started in a grassy area and moved quickly to a steep hillside of trees.

Cottle said the fire stayed low, burning mainly underbrush and shrubbery and torched only one tree. “The majority of the trees are in fairly good shape,” he said. 

Craig Morigeau, Mission Valley Power superintendent, said a quick-acting employee responded to the Ridgecrest fire area just after the fire started. His employee was on call at the time and was in the area within minutes of the fire.

At about the same time, there was a report of a downed power line in the Jette Hill area. Morigeau said Mission Valley Power customers reported a variety of power outages due to the storm, but the most prominent was from the general area of the Ridgeway Development. Lights were reported out at Wal-mart, Murdoch’s and several other locations in the area.

That outage was caused by tree limbs that fell onto power lines near the Polson cemetery. Morigeau said power was restored to that area about 1.5 hours later. 

“We had a really busy day on Sunday,” Cottle said.

The fire department received its first call of the day on Sunday, after an Irvine Flats caller reported a grass fire at about 10:30 a.m. that remained small and was caused by a bird that became entangled in electrical lines. The second call came from the Kerr Dam Road area at about 11 a.m. A compost pile was on fire, Cottle said. 

The pile, which was thought to be inactive, combusted from within. Responders and property owners used a front-end loader to dig a hole and find the fire, he said.

The third call came from Bay Point for another smoke call in the Rocky Point area, he said. Later two additional calls sent firefighters to the Jette Hill area, then to Irvine Flats where two small blazes were suppressed.

Around midnight, Cottle said his crews were asked to assist a Pablo house fire underway. Cottle said that his crews are experiencing the area’s busy time of year but suspects dry ground might be affecting fire activity. Ronan Fire Chief Mark Clary said his team got a call just after midnight Sunday for a trailer home on fire.

When they arrived at the corner of second Avenue East and First Street North where the fire was raging, Clary said they found one older trailer home fully engulfed, and a second trailer next door on fire. Within a short time, Clary said the fire spread to a garage behind the first burning trailer, then to the garage behind the other trailer. “All four buildings were on fire at the same time,” Clary said. 

The first trailer and its garage were fully destroyed, Clary said. The second trailer sustained substantial damage to the east end of the house but firefighters were able to stop the fire before it burned the west side of the home. Behind the second garage, a Quonset hut full of fireworks ignited and burned itself and the garage to the ground, Clary said.

Clary said the cause of the fire was still under investigation. No injuries were reported. Three Ronan engines, two water tenders and a heavy rescue truck as well as a Polson Fire Department mutual aid truck were used in the blaze. The Pablo fire was the third structure fire Ronan Fire Department personnel responded to in the previous few weeks.