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Burgeoning wildfire moves into Black Butte Ranch

07/29/02

JOSEPH ROSE

As many as 5,000 people fled the Central Oregon resort community of Black Butte Ranch on Sunday after a wildfire suddenly exploded into the complex and destroyed two homes.

Many of the residents and visitors who left via smoke-inundated U.S. 20 started the day golfing, swimming and horseback riding. By late Sunday afternoon, the stiff, erratic winds had doubled the size of the five-day-old Cache Mountain blaze to 3,700 acres and pushed it into the northwest corner of the popular summer resort.

Deschutes County Sheriff Les Stiles said hundreds of fires were burning on the ranch Sunday night, but most were confined to trees and bushes on the west side. Many of the 459 firefighters working the blaze were hitting spot fires and putting them out as quickly as they could, he said.

Fire engines from departments throughout Central Oregon were stationed at threatened houses. Gov. John Kitzhaber invoked the Conflagration Act, which allows firefighters to be sent from other regions to help.

Shortly after 3 p.m., the flames jumped a road and threw spot fires into the resort's Golf Homes section, wedged between the Big Meadow Golf Course and the Deschutes National Forest's tall ponderosa pines. The fire destroyed Golf Homes 96 and 97 on Fiddleneck Lane, leaving nothing but their chimneys standing.

Initially the order was to evacuate only the Golf Homes section of the combination resort-residential subdivision, but the Deschutes County sheriff's department then ordered all of the resort's visitors and residents out about 4:30 p.m.

At 7 p.m., ranch manager Loy Helmly stood in the resort's three-story glass, fir and pine lodge, watching firefighting helicopters lower 50,000-gallon buckets into the lake outside before disappearing into the smoke.

Transportation officials closed U.S. 20 between Santiam Junction and west of Sisters to keep traffic away from the blaze as firetrucks raced to the resort.

Lisa Clark of the Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center said the Cache Mountain fire had replaced the Sheldon Ridge blaze near The Dalles as the state's most worrisome. Officials were in the process of redirecting more firefighters and equipment to Sisters.

"We have to determine what (the Cache Mountain's) needs are first," she said. "We're a little surprised" by how quickly it blew up.

Helmly was also astonished. Although wildfires had threatened the 1,830-acre resort in the past, none had done any worse than throw ash and smoke. And, he said, U.S. Forest Service crews regularly clear the resort, including a lane in the northwest corner, of dry underbrush, dead trees and other wildfire fuels.

"I can't say what happened exactly," Helmly said. "It happened quickly, and the fire is still very active."