Clear Creek Fire faces
Quincy Jones, 29, of Williamstown, N. J., has been fighting the Clear Creek
Fire for a week and a half and has another couple of days to go before hell return
home. Hes in Idaho with a group of about 15 firefighters from New Jersey. "This
has been real interesting," the police dispatcher and volunteer firefighter said.
"We got to see very different fire behavior than we do at home. The fuel
moistures a lot drier. The winds change a lot faster, and the fuel types are a lot
different. The winds can swing 360 degrees in a matter of minutes. Its really
amazing."
Walt Sixkiller, a Cherokee Indian who
calls Vernal, Utah, his home, is working on the Clear Creek fire as a public information
officer. He said hes logged over 40 years of wildland firefighting in his career and
has worked all over the West. Hes now retired but was called in to help in the face
of the busiest fire fighting season in several decades. "Not in all my career,
Ive never seen anything like this," he said as he drove a dusty pickup truck
along dirt roads bordering the fire. "Were experiencing some real different
fire behavior this year. The fires been whipping us."
Bruce
Giersdorf, 43, is a supervisor on the Clear Creek Fire. He works full-time in the Chippewa
National Forest in Minnesota as a wildland firefighter. On Friday, he supervised two
hotshot firefighting crews and another crew from New Jersey to hold a fire line on the
fires northeast frontthen the most active part of the fire. "Dont
get kicked back (relax) out here. Todays not the day to do that," he told fire
crews during a briefing at noon on Friday.
Joe
Scholl, 29, is a seven-year resident of Salmon, and his 4-year-old asthmatic son is having
trouble with the thick smoke thats been cast off from the nearby fire. "He
usually uses his inhaler eight or nine times a year, but lately its been three times
a day," he said. "Im hoping some weathers going to move in.
Thats all you hear in rumors around town."
"The sun's always red"
The smoke sucks, seven-year Salmon resident Georgia Rotzien
said over coffee at the Salmon River Coffee Shop on Friday morning.
You cant see the stars, she said, and the suns
always redand its been like this for a month and a half. Its really
depressing.
Rotzien, 18, who is a coffee shop waitress and high school senior, said residents
of the small, central Idaho town have been driving with their headlights on all summer.
She described an eerie blue haze cast off from headlights and city streetlights through
the smoke thats smothered the town for a month and a half.
The Clear Creek Fire is burning a mere 12 miles west of Salmon in the Yellowjacket
Mountains, but Rotzien said residents arent concerned about the prospect of the fire
overtaking the town.
People arent afraid to lose the town, but theyre sure sick of
the smoke, she said.
She talked about how hopeful residents are for a change in the weather (which
finally occurred over the weekend).
The flip side on having the fire nearby, the 18-year-old pointed out, is
what its done for the local economy.
Ill make in two months, almost a years salary, Salmon
resident Bob Phillips, 52, said as he lounged along Salmons main drag.
Phillips quit his job at a convenience store three weeks ago to work in a fire
crew support capacity. And hes counting on post-fire reclamation projects to keep
him working in the coming years.
Its good money, he said of the $9 per hour hes making now.
Also, Rotzien added, some people are glad to see that their tax dollars are
going toward something productive in their own backyard.