Orcas Fire and Rescue Reports on Turtleback Fire

 — from Mik Preysz, OIFR Chief —

OIFR responded to a Wildland Fire, Sunday June 21 at 3:12 p.m. in the area of 1550 Crow Valley Rd. Access was through 350’ of steep terrain covered by thick vegetation with an abundance of trees, making access very difficult. The area affected by the fire was approximately 100’ x 30’ and was contained and extinguished by using approximately 3000 gallons of water. Crews dug a fire line around the fire and utilized chain saws, hand tools to extinguish stumps, root systems and expose potential hot spots.

The origin of the fire was determined to be a campfire, prepared correctly but unfortunately on top of foliage and duff, which is hard to recognize and has the tenacity to smolder and travel underground, coming to the surface at a different location and starting the fire. More than likely, this event started with the duff and root system underneath the campfire, traveled underground, probably for several days, surfacing on Sunday and igniting the vegetation.

OIFR had twenty-six members respond with 11 apparatus and 3 utility vehicles in response to the Wildland fire. Crow Valley Rd had to be closed, as the equipment could not park anywhere other than the road for a period of approximately three hours.

Monitoring of the burn site will continue through OIFR as well as the Land Bank (Firefighter/EMT Dean Dougherty) for at least the next week, to make sure that no hot spots show up to reignite the area.

OIFR thanks the support of the SJC Sheriff’s office, the Land Bank, specifically Dean Dougherty who fought the fire as an OIFR member and representative of the land bank. In addition, OIFR wishes to recognize the hard fought campaign by its volunteers in mitigating a potentially disastrous Wildland fire on Turtleback Mountain.