A brush fire that broke out alongside Sturdevant Road in Toledo Wednesday afternoon, July 10, resulted in the evacuation of several homes and responses from a number of fire districts and law enforcement agencies.
Toledo Fire Chief Larry Robeson said the fire posed an immediate threat to a number of homes in the area, and the call went out for assistance from any available to respond fire agencies.
“Clearly there was (a threat to homes),” Robeson said. “There was a report early on that a garage was on fire, but I believe the fire was just licking against the garage.
“If this fire had been later in the season when things are drier yet, or three days ago when temperatures were even higher, it could have been a lot different story,” he added. “There were houses threatened directly with what was burning, and then there was clearly some more that would have been threatened if it would have extended further south or north along Sturdevant.”
In addition to the Toledo Fire Department, Robeson said there were fire units responding from Newport, Siletz, Depoe Bay, Lincoln City, Seal Rock, the Oregon Department of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service.
There was also law enforcement support from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, Toledo Police Department and Oregon State Police. Because the fire occurred outside of the Toledo city limits, the sheriff’s office provided oversight for handling evacuation notifications, as well as the flow of people and traffic either trying to leave or get to the area.
Lt. Karl Vertner, patrol commander with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, was part of the Unified Command post for fire and law enforcement personnel that was set up at Toledo High School, just to the north of the fire.
Vertner said the initial focus was to secure the area and make sure people were out of harm’s way. “Early in the fire, yes, there were a few people getting through while we were still continuing to do evacuations, but once our fire teams reported to Unified Command, which I was at, I made clear instructions to get our people to seize all traffic other than fire-related traffic.” Restricting traffic was also necessary for the safety of firefighters. A number of fire trucks were moving along Sturdevant, spraying down hot spots in the trees along the east side of the road.
Vertner said deputies arrived at the location of the fire fairly quickly. “I think (Toledo) fire beat us on scene by about five minutes, so I think a couple of their personnel did some immediate evacuations, but then we were quickly on scene with our patrol deputies and took over that role,” he said. “We call it a leapfrog, basically. Our vehicles go up a driveway or a side road and hit all the homes and then go down the main road again. We just keep leapfrogging the driveways.”
Had the fire continued further south along Sturdevant, authorities would have been forced to evacuate a much larger population. Located to the south is Fircrest, an affordable housing development that has a total of 16 public housing units.
“We got super lucky on that,” Vertner said, saying it was a fairly low population between the high school and the last area of fire to the south. “There were about 10 homes in the immediate danger zone, and we were happy that it wasn’t getting down to that Fircrest area because it would have been hugely populated,” he said.
Lincoln County Emergency Management issued a phone alert to those in the evacuation area who had signed up to receive such notifications.
“Our EM team let me know there were 96 structures inside the level 3 evacuation zone that was sent out,” Vertner said. “There were 139 contact phone numbers for folks who have signed up for and/or identified as living in the vicinity of the fire. That means 139 phone numbers received our automated phone call with the evacuation notification.”
People can learn how to sign up for the “Lincoln Alerts” emergency notification system by going online at www.co.lincoln.or.us/789/Lincoln-Alerts
By late afternoon last Wednesday, the fire threat was pretty much under control, but the area continued to be closely monitored.
“They took control of it pretty quickly,” Robeson said. “Oregon Department of Forestry, U.S. Forest Service and contract firefighters worked the line until at least 10 o’clock, and then they had roving patrols after that.”
The fire chief said his department also responded to the site the following day because sometimes fire continues burning underground and can reignite areas. “That’s exactly what happens,” he said. “As the humidity goes down and the temperature goes up, we’re going to probably find some hot spots.” When contacted Thursday morning by the Lincoln County Leader, he said, “My guys are out right now on a hot spot, and that will happen a couple more times.”
Robeson said that initially, there was a lot of speculation as to the cause of the fire. “We had a report of smoke in the area, and it ended up being numerous fires, and then we had reports of everything from kids with sparklers, to a chain dragging between a vehicle and a trailer, intentional set, accident — we had all the opinions from everybody.”
Shannon Miller, with the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s office, was on the scene during the fire and was part of the follow-up investigation. She, too, had heard several rumors that the fires were caused by arson, but there was no evidence of that. “This was not intentionally set, (but) I’ve been stopped several times with that question,” she said.
Miller said people on the coast don’t always have the same awareness of the danger of wildfire as those living elsewhere in the state, where fires are more prevalent. But the wildfires pose a significant threat here as well, she said. “Even now, everything is so dry, and especially in our afternoons, it doesn’t matter if you’re on the coast or not, because even though we have a more humid and damp climate, everybody has to maintain their things and be careful.”
There are steps property owners can take to create a protection zone around a home so that in an event like this, responders may have just a little more time before fire reaches it.
“It would be helpful to put the information out so people know what to do and how to maintain their property,” Miller said. “We have, on the state fire marshal website, the defensible space program for how to defend your home.” That information can be found online at Oregon.gov/osfm
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