Hatch on Fire.....

[Marty Lowe]

I'm sure Craig will have some stories to tell.
The hatch was evacuated.

http://www.hatchcam.com/HatchFire/target6.html

http://www.hatchcam.com/HatchFire/index.html

-Marty

[Craig Goudie]

Gunars and I were sitting at the Hatch when the fire broke out
right next to the RR tracks between Swell City and the Hackery.
Every fire fighters nightmare as wind began to gust up strong.
The RR had just been through with a rail grinder, and that looked
like the cause to me. We watched it blaze up as fire trucks began to
show up. The police arrived and shooed us out (it didn't take much
as some flames looked like 20 footers). They used the Hatch parking lot
as a base camp for fire trucks and fighters. We moved up to Swell City
(just West and upwind of the origination point). By then, not many people could even get there, and we were forced to pretty much own
the river in perfect 4.2 conditions. That evening (Thursday)
we watched the Helicoptors grab water from the river and fly up
to within 100 feet of the hot spots and drop the water. Those guys are nuts! You could see the wind and the heat buffeting the copters around
right next to the cliff wall. They'd make good progress, but when
they had to leave to refuel (3 were working together), the flames
would rage right up again. Worked it's way up (and over) the bluff,
6 houses destroyed (though no loss of life). The wind died down
around 6 PM and allowed the fire to spread west towards us.
We had an incredible view of the choppers dousing the flames
as they flew right over the top of us. You could see huge flames
up on the bluff (maybe 30ft) from the other side of the river.
The Hatch was closed for 3 days as they continued to to use it
as command central to battle the flames. To me it looked
pretty contained by Thursday evening, but we didn't head back
that direction. Don't know how the old Broughten Lumber yard
faired, but there are people up there who would have liked to
have that burn.
Very scary stuff!

-Craig

I'm sure Craig will have some stories to tell.
The hatch was evacuated.

http://www.hatchcam.com/HatchFire/target6.html

http://www.hatchcam.com/HatchFire/index.html

-Marty