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Last night after dark the winds died down just a little. Just enough to let the smoke lay down into the valleys and blow into The Dalles city. It was like a heavy fog, except it smelled dry and smoky. The car headlights and streetlights made beams through the haze.
This morning they're getting a lot more aircraft on the fire so they ought to be able to keep it out of town.
The biggest problem for most townspeople (besides the smoke) is that the water treatment plant on Mill Creek is down. So the city is pumping from wells and the water isn't as good.
Gorge News and Information
The Dalles Chronicle
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Sheldon Ridge evacuation update:
July 26, 12:22 p.m.
Two hundred seventy homes received official notification for voluntary evacuation last night as fire fighters worked to keep flames of the Sheldon Ridge fire away from homes.
A 7 p.m. community meeting at the Civic Auditorium tonight will update local residents on the status of the fire and evacuation. Dave Wells, lead information officer with Oregon Department of Forestry, said it is not likely people will be able to return to their homes today.
Despite the number of evacuees, the Red Cross center set up at St. Peter’s Parish was deserted this morning. Red Cross Disaster Chairman Annadale Rooper said the Red Cross is open and ready to serve people, but that many evacuees were staying with family and friends, in motor homes in store parking lots around town, and at local hotels.
Evacuees are being encouraged to register with the Red Cross, even if they don’t need shelter or other services, to help family and friends locate them.
“It’s amazing how people volunteer,” said Georgia Lousignont, manager of the parish center.
Local businesses called to donate food and area residents had come by to offer a place at their home and to take in pets, according to Rooper and Lousignont.
The fire staging area at Wahtonka High School was busy this morning as fire crews who worked during the night were coming off the fire line to grab some food and recuperate before they are needed again.
Dirty and tired, D.J. Flamming, a firefighter from Dallas, Ore., with ODF, sat in the Wahtonka gym eating breakfast at around 10 a.m. with others in his crew after pulling a 24-hour shift. He was charged with protecting two cabin structures last night and said the fire came pretty close, but the heat was not that bad.
“It was mostly smokey and I saw a lot of helicopter drops right in front of me. I could feel the water from the drop,” he said.
People may call the fire information center at 296-6961 or 296-4751 for additional updates on evacuation.
Wicks Reservoir treatment plant shut down The last time the city’s water treatment plant went off-line, in 1996, it was because of floods. This time, it’s because of fire.
Citizens are asked to do their part during this rare situation by not watering their lawns.
The Dalles’ Wicks water treatment plant, some eight miles out of town off Mill Creek Road, went off-line Thursday at around 5:30 p.m., said city Water Quality Manager Dave Anderson.
The Sheldon Ridge fire, moving east toward Mill Creek Road, is about one and a half to two miles away from the plant, Anderson said this morning.
The plant was evacuated by 6:30 p.m. last night, after all the systems at the plant were shut down. Then, crews spent the night switching the city’s water supply to three city wells.
Given the lower capacity of the wells as opposed to the reservoir that feeds the plant, “we are very strongly asking for voluntary curtailment and a restriction to outside irrigation,” Anderson said.
When the February 1996 floods shut down the plant, water use was just a third of what it is at this time of year, at the height of the irrigation season. Just two million gallons of water per day were used in February 1996, compared to six million gallons a day right now, Anderson said.
While two of the wells have been put into service in recent summers, one of the wells has not been activated — though it has been regularly monitored and tested — for five or six years, he said.
The three wells can supply the city with water indefinitely, Anderson said. Combined, their daily capacity is around four million gallons, and that’s why people are urged to cut outdoor irrigation.
“We can meet the basic needs of the city pumping those wells basically as long as we need to,” Anderson said.
They can produce the four million gallons a day by running around the clock, but that is “a bit hard on them, so we’d like to see our use get back down under three (million gallons), and we’ve been close to six, so that’s why I say we’re looking for about half the use that we’ve been seeing. And again, that’s achievable because the bulk of the use during the summer is outside irrigation.”
Anderson said that with the wells now in use, water customers may notice a cloudiness or different taste to the water. The well water has more minerals than the surface water provided by the plant.
If residents see cloudiness, “we recommend flushing pipes to see if it clears which it should. It’s just a stirring up of accumulated material inside the pipes.”
While irrigation curtailment is not being actively enforced by the city, it has contacted large irrigators, such as the Northern Wasco County Park and Recreation District, and asked them to halt irrigation. “They’ve been very cooperative to turn off some of the big outdoor irrigation water systems.”
Also, city crews removed chlorine tanks from the water treatment plant. “We did remove the chlorine from the water treatment plant so it would not be any risk of compromising it because of the fire,” Anderson said.
Relay for Life event cancelled The Dalles Area Relay for Life, originally scheduled this weekend at Wahtonka Field, has been cancelled as a result of the Sheldon Ridge Fire.
Fire crews are using Wahtonka Field as a staging area, and Relay organizers decided their event would create too much interference with fire crews.
The Relay is a fundraiser for cancer research.
Earlier, Relay organizers had curtailed the event to a 12-hour period, down from its original 24 hours, but decided to cancel it altogether late this morning as more crews arrived to battle what has become the highest-priority wildfire in the United States.
People who have Relay pledges or donations may turn these in at Columbia River Bank or the Barbecue, using Relay envelopes provided to participants.
A barbecue may be scheduled in a couple of weeks to honor Relay participants; details will be announced as they become available.
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Scanner says more evacuations now ordered on Mill Creek Rd. Winds are really strong this afternoon.
The answer to these problems is: DUMP DEM DEMOCRATS OUT OF STATE AND FEDERAL OFFICES!