By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Evacuation orders for the north end of Lincoln City were dropped Saturday as cooler weather helped firefighters keep the 2,400-acre Echo Mountain fire burning to the east from growing.
People who had been forced from their homes along East Devils Lake Road and South Schooner Creek Road were told early Saturday they could return.
But the large areas north and south of Oregon Highway 18 from its intersection with U.S. Highway 101 eight miles east through Rose Lodge were still closed Saturday. That included heavily burned areas of North Bank and North Panther Creek roads on the north side of Highway 18.
“It’s still burning and people need to keep out,” Ashley Lertora, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said Saturday. “It’s still an active fire.”
Fire officials estimate more than 100 homes have been lost to the Echo Mountain fire burning through Otis and the Kimberling fire burning near Rose Lodge. Cause of the fire has not been determined. There are more than 4,000 structures — homes, barns, shed and outbuildings — inside the two fires.
Two teams to assess damage are expected to arrive Saturday to begin inspecting damage to homes and other structures, Lertora said. That effort will take days.
But 305 firefighters made good progress on both fires Friday and through the night into Saturday.
The Kimberling fire has been lined and has hoses around it now, Lertora said, and mop-up will begin Saturday.
The Echo Mountain fire is burning in steeper terrain and has been more difficult to line, she said. Bulldozers and crews continue to establish cleared areas on its north edges.
There are now 27 engines, 12 water tenders, nine bulldozers and 10 hand crews on the two fires.
Michael Curran, the Department of Forestry’s district forester, asked for the public’s patience and understanding of the road closures inside the two fires.
“Until hazard trees are removed, repairs to the power lines are made and structure assessment completed, portions of the fire will remain closed to the public for the firefighters’
safety,” Curran said Saturday.
Lincoln County Commission Chair Kaety Jacobson recorded a special message on the county’s YouTube channel thanking residents for “stepping up and showing up” during the fires and urging anyone in need to contact the county’s call center at 541-265-0621. “In the darkness there is always light and hope,” she said.
In other developments Saturday:
- Pacific Power restored electricity to Lincoln City after several recurring outages Friday. That allowed Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital to reopen its emergency room and some inpatient services Saturday morning with full service expected sometime Monday. The hospital closed Wednesday and evacuated nine patients to its sister facility in Newport.
- Highway 101 through Lincoln City fully reopened Friday; Highway 18 remains closed.
- Residents of Lakeside Memory Care in Lincoln City remain at the Shilo Inn in Newport after being evacuated Wednesday. They are being cased for in the hotel’s conference center and are in need of donations, including loose clothing (sweat pants, pajamas, socks and T-shirts) and non-perishable food.
- The American Red Cross, which had set up an evacuation center at the Newport Recreation Center, said it was “well stocked” with donated items and that if people wanted to help that cash donations were preferred because it allows more flexibility serving people in need. Some 80 people spent Friday night there, and the goal is to find them temporary housing in motels or elsewhere by Monday.
Yachats aids evacuees
Thanks to donations stretching from Yachats to as far away as Philomath, a community donation center set up in a former bank building in downtown Toledo is full of items for fire evacuees.
The city of Yachats began collecting donations on Thursday and by the end of the day Friday had delivered 11 loads of items to the center. The city posted requests on Facebook, its email notification system and Community Services coordinator Heather Hoen distributed fliers around town.
“People were showing up with donations before I got back from putting fliers out,” Hoen said Friday.
Donations ranged from toiletries to pet food to camp stoves to towels and filled the main section of city offices.
Yachats’ generosity was noted by Shelley McGuire, who is coordinating the Toledo Donation Center.
“I can’t say enough about everyone’s help,” McGuire said Saturday. “The communities – from Yachats to Toledo to even Philomath – came through overwhelmingly.”
The center is coordinating its relief efforts with the city of Toledo, which has opened two parks and the high school to Otis-area evacuees who have recreational vehicles and camping equipment.
McGuire is organizing donations into a store-like setting.
“When we have people walk in, I just give them a box and let them walk around and pick what they need.”
Two Otis residents lose everything to fire, now in Yachats
Glenda Fitzgerald and Jim Bowles had not heard anything about wind storms or fires or evacuations until 3 a.m. Wednesday when the first sirens sounded on Oregon Highway 18 nearby.
Then a Lincoln County Sheriff’s volunteer banged on their window yelling that they had 15 minutes to get out.
The two live in a two-bedroom manufactured home in the Salmon River Mobile Village on the south side of the highway in the rural community of Otis east of Lincoln City.
Bowles, 64, works at Dollar Tree in Lincoln City; Fitzgerald has health conditions that prevent her from working. Bowles has rented a room from Fitzgerald for 2½ years.
“Neither of us have an income to live on our own,” Bowles says. “We have to do this together.”
And now they believe Fitzgerald’s uninsured home is among the more than 100 structures lost this week to the Echo Mountain Fire that raced through Otis early Wednesday.
Fitzgerald had lived in the mobile home park for six years. She said it was a tight-knit group of 30 homeowners who regularly got together for barbecues, card games and parties.
“We had a little community. Everybody’s wonderful,” she said. “It was a string of pearls, the rich and the poor and everyone took care of each other.”
Now, Fitzgerald and Bowles are staying at the Dublin House in Yachats. They won’t be allowed back into Otis for days. But Bowles has seen videos that indicate their home was consumed by fire.
“There’s no denying that our place is gone,” he told YachatsNews on Friday as they sat in their motel room.
They left with literally the clothes on their backs. Fitzgerald says she had no time to grab a family Bible, important papers, pictures or a laptop computer.
“I’ve never been evacuated,” she said Friday. “I thought we’d be out for a couple of hours and we’d be back.”
The two landed at the Yachats motel Wednesday afternoon after two Lincoln City motels they were checking into had to suddenly evacuate as well. It took them two hours – caravanning with a neighbor – to get to Newport, but decided to keep heading south.
James Kerti, director of the Yachats Visitors Center, has been checking with motel managers to see if they had taken in evacuees and if the community could help.
He brought over donations the city was already collecting for evacuees, alerted Yachats Community Presbyterian Church, and helped spread the word to downtown businesses.
Bags of clothes, toiletries, and other necessities showed up. So did a chicken and rice casserole from Beach Street Kitchen, cooked specifically for Fitzgerald’s health. Someone donated a $200 Visa card.
“We so appreciate your town,” Fitzgerald told YachatsNews. “Bless this community.”