This story was originally published by The Times Journal.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s another fire season and, once again, fire crews are fighting blazes that scorch untold thousands of acres across the West. But firefighting is much more than being on the front lines of the actual fire. It’s a massive logistical undertaking to keep the operations going, as well as work that comes after the last of the flames are put out.
In the series we call “Fire Season,” we will share stories from other outlets and our original reporting focused on those other dimensions of battling wildfires in rural and remote parts of the country. We begin with a story from The Times Journal, a newspaper serving the frontier counties of Gilliam, Sherman and Wheeler in North Central Oregon.
A water contamination issue disrupted cooking operations for two days at the Spray fire camp in the town of Spray in Wheeler County, Oregon, but no one fell ill, and there was still enough food to go around for firefighters, officials told the Times-Journal.
For two weeks, Spray School was turned into a tent city that served as the main fire camp for crews battling the Rowe Creek Complex fire, which was started by a lightning storm on July 15 and has since grown into a monster spanning 323,951 acres in Wheeler, Wasco, Crook and Jefferson counties. As of August 3, there were 1,985 personnel assigned to the blaze, which was listed as 60% contained, according to Watch Duty
The problems started on Wednesday, July 22, when a truckload of potable water brought into the camp by a catering company tested positive for bacterial contamination, according to Brett Deedon, a public information officer (PIO) for the Rowe Creek Complex.
“No one got sick,” added fellow PIO Suzannah Burke. “It’s just that there was a positive test.”
The truckload of water could not be used, which left the camp without enough water for normal kitchen operations.
Burke said she wasn’t sure how that affected portable handwashing stations and showers at the camp, although she noted that clean water was still available for showering in the school’s locker rooms. There were no known issues with Spray’s municipal water supply, and Burke said there was plenty of bottled water available for firefighters.
“Basically, we just didn’t use the caterer for two days,” she said. “It was resolved by Friday afternoon.”
The camp still had hefty sack lunches available for firefighters as well as plenty of emergency food supplies on hand, Burke said, including MREs (“meals, ready to eat,” prepackaged rations used by military units in the field). In addition, some hot food was delivered to the camp by various firefighting agencies working in the area.
“We did have access to food the whole time,” Burke said.
But not everyone is a fan of MREs, and with the fire camp’s kitchen temporarily out of commission, firefighters scrambled to find alternative sources for hot meals. With only 140 residents, Spray doesn’t have the same dining options as larger communities, but the town’s two food carts and sole convenience store rose to the occasion.
Located right across the street from the fire camp, the Lone Elk Market got hit with a wave of hungry firefighters on Wednesday evening.
“Those boys and girls came home and had no dinner,” said Synde Autenrieth, who owns the convenience store with her partner, Loren Woodward. “They were in here in force.”
Firefighters were purchasing Cup O’ Noodles by the case, along with canned meats, chili, and frozen meals, Autenrieth said.“We had a two-hour line at the microwave,” she said.
Normally the store closes at 6 p.m., but Autenrieth said she and Woodward were there till nearly 11 pm the first night, trying to take care of all the customers. It all started again when the store opened the next morning. “Coffee was the other biggest issue,” Autenrieth said. “I literally just manned the coffee station. We had lines for about four hours, from 6 to 10 a.m.”
While the Lone Elk is open every day, Spray’s food carts operate on a Thursday-Sunday schedule, so they got into the act a day later, starting on Thursday.
“We made 340 burgers in two days,” said Mitch Elliott, owner of the Retired Pig. That’s about three to five times what he sells in a normal week. Hordes of hungry firefighters descended on his cart around 8 p.m. on Thursday, as they were coming off the line and he was getting ready to close, Elliott said. “We were in here cooking until 10:30.”
The same thing happened again on Friday, although this time Elliott and his small crew were prepared for the onslaught. He had made an emergency supply run to Kennewick, Washington, and streamlined his menu — hamburgers only. “On Friday we just banged it out,” he said.
By Saturday, he added, the fire camp’s kitchen was up and running again, and things slowed down for him.
But it was the same story next door at Topwater Pizza, where owner Grace Mitchell was closing down on Thursday when the fire crews began rolling in.
“I sold out that night about 9 o’clock,” she said. “The next day I took out a lot more doughs — both of us were cooking till about 10:30.” Mitchell said she was getting orders for 10 pizzas at a time, far more than her small cart could efficiently handle. “I only have two ovens — I can only cook four pizzas at a time,” she said.
The firefighters, Mitchell added, were gracious, patient and grateful to get a fresh-cooked meal after a long shift on the Rowe Creek Complex. “Everybody kept making jokes, like “This is way better than an MRE,’” she said. “I loved it. We were having so much fun — everybody laughing and joking.”
Even then, some firefighters apparently fell through the cracks.
Bonnie Burgess, who lives a few miles outside Spray, said she got a text message sometime after 9 pm on Wednesday night from the son of an acquaintance who said he and his supervisor were in need of a hot meal.
“I had just bought a couple of freezer dinners,” she said. “I heated them up and put in some cookies and some apples.”
Some local residents have been looking for ways to thank the fire crews for their efforts by providing them with food. Burke said the gesture is deeply appreciated, but because of safety rules, they are unable to accept food donations.
“We really like signs, we really like smiles, we really like thumbs up when we are driving down the road,” she said. “We love the community support.”
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