Scatter Creek Fire Victim Recounts Fast-Moving Blaze

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Karen Mork was driving home to Rochester last month when she saw thick smoke. Her first thought: “It was way too close to my house.”

“I saw it hit the trees. Being a fireman’s daughter and having lived in Eastern Washington for a number of years, I went ‘Oh my God, we’ve got an Eastern Washington fire. We’re in trouble,’” she said in a phone interview last week.

The fast-moving brush fire that started Aug. 22 burned about 385 acres, mostly within the Scatter Creek Wildlife Area. Evacuation orders were issued for the residents of about 100 homes while more than 200 firefighters from local and state agencies attacked the blaze from the ground and the air.

Fire officials say this shows the threat of wildfire in Western Washington is real.

“It will be our normal,” Janet Pearce, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Natural Resources, said of fires like this. “Our fire seasons are getting worse. It’s getting hotter, it’s getting drier.”

When Mork finally reached her house that day, she tried to round up her five cats and evacuate.

“I pulled back the curtain and the flames were 2 inches away from my face,” she said.

She told her cats she was sorry, grabbed her purse and got to her car. By then, the smoke was so thick she could only see to the end of the hood.

Mork’s home and another nearby were destroyed, as was a landscaping supply business up the street. A mile away, in the Scatter Creek Wildlife Area owned and managed by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, a historic house and barn also were destroyed.

The damage was initially thought to be worse. At one point, officials put the size of the fire at nearly 500 acres, but that was revised after crews walked the perimeter. They also said four homes were destroyed but it was actually two.

While the exact cause of the Scatter Creek Fire has not been determined, Pearce said it was likely human-caused since there was no lightning in the area.



Nearly two weeks later, crews are still patrolling the area as temperatures are expected to reach the high 90s this week. Meanwhile, work to restore the wildlife area could take years.

The fire burned 345 acres on the south side of the wildlife area, which is home to several threatened and endangered species, including the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly, mardon skipper butterfly and Mazama pocket gopher.

“The first thing you notice is all the black, bare ground with the scorched shrubs and so forth scattered here and there, and then the scorched trees along the edge of the forest,” said Brian Calkins, regional wildlife manager for the Department of Fish and Wildlife who toured the area last week.

The south side of the wildlife area remains closed until future notice. Early estimates put the cost to restore the prairie habitat at more than $1 million.

Calkins said the department had planned to do prescribed burns in the area this summer but is waiting for conditions to improve. The department has crews for prescribed burns but they do not typically fight fires.

That leaves local agencies to serve as the first line of defense when fire does break out, said Capt. Lanette Dyer, of the West Thurston Regional Fire Authority.

“I’m sure people didn’t think fire would come right into the neighborhood,” Dyer said. “With this fire, roads were not a fire break.”

Dyer said hotter, drier summers mean residents of Thurston County have to start thinking about ways to protect themselves from wildfires, including creating defensible space around property and planning access for emergency vehicles.

She told the county’s board of commissioners last week that work should start right away.

“We’re going to have to start addressing that as a community, and it has to start today because we’re not out of the woods yet,” she said.