Never could I have imagined since moving to Washington that I would pray for rain.
In fact, when I arrived here at 14, homesick for Colorado, I wrote a poem singing the praise of my former home and ending with this:
Now here I am in Washington
Where the rain comes down each day
And here is where I’ll have some fun
But here I will not stay.
What do 14-year-olds know about where the future will take them … or leave them? Actually, returning to Colorado a year later, I couldn’t believe how brown it was. After living in the lush green Northwest, the contrast with dry field grass seemed stark. The parched golden grasses here this summer remind me of Colorado.
As wildfires rage across the state, I pray for rain. A 100-acre grass fire near Onalaska Wednesday, only 6 miles from our home, left us wondering what we’d do if a wildfire erupted, what we’d pack with only minutes to escape. Photo albums? Videotapes? Computers? Family history books?
Looking at the rubble left after 16 large wildfires destroyed more than 200 homes in Central and Eastern Washington, I imagine how heartsick the owners feel.
When I was 9, hobbling around in green slippers after a toothpick rammed through my foot, I stood outside as firefighters tossed our dolls, toys, clothes and charred furniture from an upstairs window after a fire broke out in our rental house.
Even then I realized what mattered most: Nobody was hurt. But we lost everything upstairs, either to flames, smoke or water damage. It seemed heartbreaking at the time.
But what’s truly heart-wrenching are the deaths of three seasonal firefighters for the U.S. Forest Service killed Wednesday near Twisp in a vehicle accident while trying to outrun a quick-moving inferno — Tom Zbyszeweski, 20, Carlton; Andrew Zajac, 26, Winthrop; and Richard Wheeler, 31, Wenatchee.
Four others on foot were injured, including Daniel Lyon, 25, of Puyallup, who remains in critical condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with burns over 60 percent of his body.
The fires remind me of a story recounted by my brother-in-law’s father, Alfred Wright, whose dad miraculously survived the Yacolt Burn of 1902, which has been described as the deadliest fire in Washington history.
The blaze burned from Sept. 11 through 13, killing 38 people and destroying 146 homes. East winds fanned the flames as the fire spread 30 miles in 36 hours, devouring trees, brush and buildings on 238,920 acres in Clark, Cowlitz and Skamania counties. Black smoke filled the sky, forcing a Columbia River steamboat to use a searchlight for navigation.
Clarence Wright, whose father homesteaded outside Washougal in the 1870s, hauled freight with a team and wagon to miners in nearby hills. He was hauling freight when the fire swept across the countryside.
“In order to save himself, why, he got off and left the rig,” Alfred Wright said. “It caught fire along with the team. He went down into the Washougal River into a pool there underwater and he used a weed that grows alongside the river — I call them onion stalks. They’re hollow inside. He had one of those to breathe through so he could get under the water and save himself ’til the fire went over.”
He was lucky.
As I watch footage of the fires, Robert Frost’s poem “Fire and Ice” replays in my mind:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of
desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
•••
Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
