Alfredo and Leslie Rigo, Warm Springs
When the Castle Rock Fire scorched the face of Guyer Ridge, it lapped at the edge of Alfredo and Leslie Rego's property, just around the corner from the Warm Springs base area.
As the fire moved closer and the couple heard the order to evacuate, they realized they had a monumental task in front of them. Alfredo, 60, is a native of Guatemala, where the two met, and they've filled their lovely log-and-stucco home with Guatemalan folk art, including about 80 hand-carved animals, hung large weavings on the walls and installed carved and painted doors throughout. In addition, Alfredo runs his database server company from his house. His customers¾big companies like Boeing and jetBlue Airways¾depended on him to stay in operation.
The couple's college-age children came to their rescue. They brought about 15 friends with pickup trucks and began to move stuff out.
"The first things that went were the sentimental things¾the photos and a lot of family papers, including letters and poems from the second world war," Leslie said. "Then more kids showed up and more kids showed up and we just started moving the whole house."
They carted out the animals, took down the weavings and removed the heavy, solid-wood doors from their hinges.
The Rigos stayed with friends in Starweather, about halfway between Ketchum and Hailey, until they found a house in Elkhorn they could rent short-term.
With the help of Qwest, Alfredo was able to get his business up and running in the new location after only a two-day delay.
"Our customers didn't even know," he said.
Then their friends in Starweather were ordered to evacuate, and they moved in with the Rigos in Elkhorn.
As the fire raged closer to their home, the Rigos could only watch from Highway 75. Peering through the smoke, they could occasionally see flames shooting up from the hillside just behind their property.
When the word came that they could move back, they discovered that the fire had come to within a couple hundred yards of the house. Last week, they began the task of sorting out the possessions piled in their living room, and gratefully serving orange juice and coffee to the firefighters mopping up hot spots on the hill.
"We became good friends with them," Alfredo said.
He said the fire was just another of life's bouts with Mother Nature.
"I went through a lot of earthquakes in Guatemala," he said. "There's no safe place anywhere."
Fred and Randi Filoon, East Fork
Fred Filoon and his wife, Randi, live in East Fork. Their son, Mat, 37, lives with his wife, Jessica, 40, on the Board Ranch. On Aug. 8, Jessica gave birth to twins. Ten days later, the young family were evacuated from their home along Warm Springs Road. They were fortunate to have their parents living nearby, and found a warm welcome there. Festoon said an unexpected benefit of the crisis was that it brought the family together.
"We loved it!" he said.
But then an evacuation order was given for East Fork, too.
"They were scared of embers coming down, and because East Fork has no back exit, they wanted people to be prepared," Filoon said.
So Jessica took the twins to stay with friends in Boise to get them away from the smoke. Mat, a volunteer firefighter with the Ketchum Fire Department, was spending long, exhausting days on the fire.
Before the couple left their Board Ranch home, Filoon said, four or five neighbors came by to move a woodpile away from the house and cut brush around it.
"There was an impressive rallying around the town that helped everyone," Filoon said. "It was an incredible support system."
Christine Cordeau, Warm Springs
Christine Cordeau, 23, lives on the Board Ranch in a house of avid skiers. Her roommates, Carl Rixon Jr., 25, and Wes Powell, 23, are well-known local racers.
"We went down the road and watched the fire until they made us leave," Cordeau said.
She said that when they were ordered to evacuate their house, their first thought was to take their animals, pictures and some clothes. Their second thought was for their skis¾all 40 pairs of them.
After hauling out all the skis, the three stayed in a camping trailer along Corral Creek for three days, then moved to Magic Reservoir, south of the Wood River Valley, to get out of the smoke. Cordeau said it felt like a bit of a vacation.
"We thought it would only be a day or two," she said. "After about a week, we realized it was the real deal. We wondered if we'd have to pay rent while we were gone. We did."
Nancy Ferries, Warm Springs
Nancy Ferries was out of town until early September, but neighbors updated her.
"They were back-burning directly over my roof," she said. "I just got e-mailed all the pictures. It was of course unsettling. I wasn't that afraid because these firefighters were so on top of everything."
Rod Thornton, Hailey
"I just thought they did a great job, the firefighters. It couldn't have been better. I helped some people evacuate. I hauled some of their stuff out for them in Adams Gulch."
Donna Simms, Hailey
"I found that the command team as well as the firefighters and law enforcement and other personnel related to the fire were really outstanding," Simms said.
Simms attended a party where the consensus was "Incident Commander Jeanne Pincha-Tulley for president."
Charles Friedman, East Fork
"I got evacuated twice, first from my house in East Fork and then from a friend's house in Warm Springs. East Fork was crazy because when I left my house in the afternoon to go to Hailey it was blue skies. I went to a movie and when I got out I had messages from friends asking if I needed help moving. It was pretty much a panic evacuation because it was at night and I had no idea how close the danger was. It was hard to pack, as I didn't know if this was just a safety precaution or if I would never see anything left behind again."
Leslie Scarborough, Hailey
"On Monday night, the night the fire actually hit Baldy, I was taking advantage of my Zenergy pass, and I was looking up at Cozy burning, and you could see the sky glow, and you could actually see the flames. And it seemed familiar to me. And all of a sudden I remembered the Firefighter's Ball of 1995. I went home, and I was right. A fire burning on Baldy was the backdrop for the ball portraits. Oh the irony."
