Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Jeanne Pincha-Tulley returns to valley

Incident commander led Castle Rock Fire battle


By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

Jeanne Pincha-Tulley answers a question from Idaho Mountain Express Publisher Pam Morris. Photo by David N. Seelig

When asked last week what it takes to direct a crew of 1,700 firefighters, Castle Rock Fire Incident Commander Jeanne Pincha-Tulley replied, "A sense of humor really helps a lot!"

That sense of humor was evident throughout a one-hour public appearance Pincha-Tulley made at the Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood in Ketchum, almost six months after she directed the effort that saved the town and Bald Mountain from the area's worst wildfire in anyone's memory. Her public conversation on Thursday evening, Feb. 21, with Idaho Mountain Express Publisher Pam Morris was a reunion of sorts. In August, Pincha-Tulley had endeared herself to local residents by not only saving their homes, but by calming their nerves during public information talks throughout the fire's two-week run through the Smoky Mountains west of Ketchum.

In addition to her appearance at the Church of the Big Wood, she spoke last week to local schoolchildren and to the Ketchum Rotary Club.

Nearly 150 people attended the event at the church. Morris, who was herself evacuated from her Board Ranch home during the fire, plied Pincha-Tulley with questions for about 40 minutes, then read questions written on cards by members of the audience.

Pincha-Tulley, 49, is the only woman among the country's 17 Type I incident fire commanders. She said the first inkling that she might get into disaster-related work came when she volunteered to help clean up after tornadoes while growing up in Alabama. She said she was part of a family of engineers, but knew early on that she'd rather work in the woods. She began her fire-fighting career in 1978 in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest while earning a degree in forest management from the University of Washington. She is now chief of fire-fighting in the Tahoe National Forest in California.

She said she got the call to head up the Castle Rock fire-fighting effort at 6:30 a.m. one Saturday in mid-August at her home in California. At that time, she said, she had never even heard of Ketchum. When she got here and looked around at the command center inside River Run Lodge, she said, she realized that "I am the only incident commander to have four chandeliers in her office." She said computer models indicated that if the fire were not controlled, it would almost certainly burn through Ketchum within seven days.

Pincha-Tulley said she at first had trouble procuring the firefighters and equipment she needed from the National Interagency Fire Center.

"When we told them we were protecting $6 billion in assets ... they changed their priorities," she said.

The Castle Rock Fire became the No. 1 priority fire in the United States, and the effort to control it grew to include 1,700 firefighters, 19 helicopters, 113 engines and seven bulldozers.

Additional funds were procured from the Federal Emergency Management Agency through the efforts of Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, and local officials. When asked what had changed between two public information meetings, during the second of which Pincha-Tulley had said, "I've never had so much to work with," she answered, "The governor called the White House."

Pincha-Tulley said a particular difficulty fighting the Castle Rock Fire was a shifting wind brought on by a cold front.

"That does terrible things to a fire-first it swings this way, then it swings that way," she said.

When asked what was her most worrisome moment during the fire, Pincha-Tulley said, "Probably the night before Baldy had its spectacular photo op." That day the Bald Mountain ski area looking like a volcano, with an enormous plume of smoke rising hundreds of feet into the sky. The evening before, she said, she realized that plans to fight the fire in Bassett Gulch, before it moved up the backside of the bowls, were unstructured and unworkable. Instead, she said, she created a plan to stop it at the top of the mountain's northeast ridge. That effort worked, and the fire's run was brought to a halt as it singed the edge of the ski area.

"What was the alternative contingency plan?" Morris asked.

"Prayer," Pincha-Tulley answered.

Pincha-Tulley said she was never too worried that the fire would burn homes in Warm Springs.

"We just asked people to evacuate in case we screwed up," she said.

In response to an audience question about how fighting fires in Idaho compares to fighting fires in California, Pincha-Tulley said the grass and brush fires in California move faster, as much as 30 miles a day, but the forest fires in the Rockies are harder to put out.

Asked what steps she recommended that local residents take to protect the area from future fires, she advised that they re-elect the same local officials and install a reverse 911 system, which automatically phones people to alert them to disasters and evacuation orders.

Asked what the possibility is that the Wood River Valley will burn again soon, she replied, "With as much pine beetle kill as there is and with the drought conditions, it's going to happen."




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