'A Firey Blur' First Hand Account of Fire That Destroyed 100-Year-Old Barn in Wasco County
The wheat fields surrounding the Atkins property which were ripe for harvesting are now a patchwork of black and gold.
On July 1st, the Sunset Valley Fire in Wasco County grew to 987 acres in the course of a couple hours, burning up wheat fields, a portion of a local cherry orchard, damaging several outbuildings, and multiple vehicles.
It also came within ten feet of destroying three homes belonging to four generations of the Atkins and Bishop family along HWY 197.
Although their homes survived and no one was hurt, the blaze still destroyed fencing, hundreds of trees that help prevent erosion, several vehicles that were getting ready for resale, farm equipment, and...
An uninsured 100-year-old barn that belonged in the family for over four generations.
The barn itself was built nearly 50 years before the Atkins family ever arrived on the land. Lana Bishop-Atkins said she estimated that it must have been built by the original homesteaders.
“It was so old the foundation was just made of rocks, not even concrete or concrete blocks,” Lana said.
Amber Atkins and Lana Atkins stand in front of what used to be their families barn. But thanks to coffee they’re managing to keep in good spirits.
The loss of the barn was a blow for the family.
As many farm people know, in some ways, an old barn can be a bit like a silently observing family member. It shelters you and your animals, stores your stuff, puts up with a lot of literal sh*t whether it’s horse or cow or rabbit or chicken. And much like family, maintaining an old barn is both an investment and a labor of love. Old barns require regular money, maintenance and repairs to keep them in working condition.
Over the course of its life, the old barn had been home to animal feed, rabbits, chickens, barn cats, dogs, farm kids, lizards, lawnmowers, firewood, and alfafa and hay bales.
Coopers first bucket ride. Amber Atkins, Cooper Atkins, and Casey Heiss working on the farm.
While the barn was old, the stuff inside was much newer.
Inside the barn, there was also 50 feet of hose that had just been purchased to help defend the property in the event of a fire.
Inside were new dog and cat crates that would have been used to evacuate the animals on the property.
The 15-acre property is home to 25 cats, 5 dogs, two horses, and Lana’s Boarding Kennels, which look after animals while their owners are away on holiday and have been booked full almost every weekend.
“We’ve taken in a lot of strays because people come out here and dump them. Or sometimes animals are surrendered at the clinic because people can’t afford their vet bills and so we end up fostering them or they end up staying with us,” said Amber. “ “When the fire came I only managed to find a few of the cats and throw them in the car. The rest were all hiding.”
Unfortunately, the barn, the evacuation kennels, and the new firefighting hose were the first things to go when the fire swept through.
Fire moving north through the neighboring wheat fields towards the house. Lana said she grabbed this photo while fighting the fire as it closed in on the south side of her home.
A pano shows how close the fire came to Lana Bishop-Atkins home.
A Firey Blur, a first hand account of the Sunset Valley Fire
“It’s kind of a blur, the whole thing happened so quickly,” said Lana Bishop-Atkins, “It took only minutes from the time we saw smoke on the other side of the hill to the time it was within feet of our houses.”
When Lana saw the smoke from the Sunset Valley fire she started running. It wasn’t the first time they’d had a fire, in the area and she knew time was a limited resource.
Lana called her daughter who lives up the hill on the property to warn her. Then she ran to brother Eddy Bishop’s house, who lives between the two while calling 911.
Because of the service out there she lost connection with them the first time and had to call 911 again to give them the details.
Lana’s daughter, Amber Atkins, 30 was at home with her year and half-year-old son Cooper when Lana called her.
Amber, Casey, and Cooper enjoying a well earned rest by the pool together after a tough week. Although Cooper doesn’t seem too sure about having his moment stolen by a photographer. Behind them a once golden wheat field is now bare charred ground.
Her first priority was to get Cooper to safety. Her second was to evacuate the animals, and her third was to defend her childhood home from fire.
Amber called her boyfriend Casey Heiss to come help. A nearby shipping container, which was used for storage and had other fire-fighting supplies in it was locked, she hoped he knew where the keys were but they were nowhere to be found.
Casey was working in Wamic helping to build a new home. It would take him a while to get there, he said he’d hurry.
Amber’s coworkers from Columbia Veterinary Hospital started texting her. They had heard about the fire and were on their way, asking how they could help.
Amber, baby boy in tow, started to hook up a hose to the pump of our 12x10 pool to try and defend the house.
Finally Amber’s co-workers came to pick up Cooper but he was not a happy camper.
“I told them just get him out of here. He was crying. I think he thought he was being kidnapped, but he calmed down eventually,” said Amber.
Hands-free of Cooper, Amber began to get to work evacuating their cats, dogs, and horses, but before she got very far she noticed the fire was approaching the barn far more quickly than expected.
Amber ran to the 100 year old barn only forty feet or so from her home to grab the new hose but when she approached the barn, a fire had already started at the back of it.
And the fire was already so big and so hot all she could do was switch on the hose and run.
“It was too hot, I had to bail,” she said. “It was intense, the fire just came so fast.”
Firefighters said that when they arrived dozens of cats that had been hiding in the barn had begun “shooting out of there” as the fire spread. The water from the barn hose was still running when they arrived.
The 100-year-old barn was burning and the fire was spreading.
The fire claimed Dakota Atkin’s trailer, several vehicles, and burned through the family's woodpile.
Smoke obscures the burning barn as it consumes Dakota Atkin’s trailer.
The fire burned up nearly 2 years' worth of firewood in one go.
“We’d just finished collecting it,” said Amber.
But the nearby shipping container survived the fire in one piece.
“It was hissing and popping from the heat,” said Amber “But it made it through.”
Amber’s boyfriend Casey arrived with some of his friends to help but the situation had gotten worse.
“I told him the fire is ten feet from the house,” said Amber.
“The fire was moving so fast it felt like it took the firefighters forever to arrive,” said Lana.
Air support arrived first.
“The fire planes started dumping water on the fire, that helped a little,” said Lana, “I got hit by the water twice. It was kind of like going through a car wash with all that water coming down. And then the water made the smoke worse so it was hard to tell what was going on.”
Firefighters started to arrive in firetrucks. Agencies that responded included Dufur, Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue, Lebanon, and Lake Oswego Fire Departments, and set about helping in whatever way they could.
“They told us to leave, and I said no. So they said, okay well, you got another hose?” said Lana. “I was all business at that point just trying to deal with the situation as it came.”
Amber was still busy trying to evacuate the animals.
Amber and young Addie, during greener times.
“I grabbed who I could, but most of the cats were hiding. Addie (Amber’s horse) was waiting at the bottom of the pasture for me looking at me like ‘let me out, let me out,’” said Amber.
“Poor Amber was standing at the bottom of the driveway with 4 cats and five dogs in her car, one horse tied to the car,” said Lana.
One firefighter offered to tie Addie, Amber's horse. Amber was hesitant, Addie was a good horse but untrained and the situation was stressful.
“At first I told him no, she doesn’t tie well, and she was bucking and there’s smoke and fire everywhere and he just looked at me and said ‘Do you want me to hold your f****ing horse?” And I said YES PLEASE,” said Amber.
Firefighters were focusing on putting out the barn and preventing the fire from spreading to Amber’s home, and the pet boarding kennels down the hill.
But while firefighters were busy focusing on the barn, another fire had started behind them.
Uncle Eddy’s porch had caught fire.
Eddy’s trailer and several vehicles caught on fire.
Lana saw what was happening and acted quickly.
She grabbed a hose and started fighting the fire on her brother’s porch trying to prevent the entire home from burning.
“The glass windows were exploding out of the nearby cars as I went to put out a fire that had started on Eddy's porch. I kept thinking about those car’s gas tanks and hoping they didn’t explode,” said Lana.
The fire burned part of the porch, a grape arbor, melted Eddy's wood chipper, lawnmower, and the aluminum wheels on several vehicles. But his home was saved.
The heat from the fire quickly melted the lawnmower and other equipment.
Several vehicles, incuding some that were ready for resale were damaged in the fire.
Lana’s shoes had started to melt from the heat but she was too busy fighting fire to notice.
“I was wearing crocs because they’d been recommended to me after I got plantar fasciitis. I didn’t notice at the time you know, I was busy running around, but they had melted,” said Lana, “I just wasn’t thinking about it. I was just thinking about trying to save as much as we could.”
Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Red Team had firefighters remain on scene putting out hotspots for nearly two days. Thanks to the firefighters and the families joint efforts, Lana, Amber, and Eddy’s homes all survived the blaze, and Cooper was reunited with his mom after the fire was put out.
The fire left the family with lot of clean up to do.
“There’s still a lot of clean-up to do,” said Amber. “There’s metal and glass everywhere.”
Lana said there were no plans to replace the barn that was lost, as it was not insured and with the increased cost of building materials, and constantly increasing fire danger, they plan to instead replace the lost storage with a shipping container.
Lana Bishop-Atkins and her dog Riggs take a long look at the damaged property.
“The fire burned along both sides of our driveway, it burned a lot of our corral fencing that’s all got to be replaced. All the trees are done for. We’ve got to get some erosion control spray to put on the horse arena so we don’t lose it if we get lots of rain this winter and fall. And hopefully our neighbors will put something on the wheat field that burned to keep the whole hillside from eroding on top of us,” said Lana.
On top of replacing lost storage, fire and erosion prevention, there’s also a lot of cataloging to do of insured items that were lost.
“I know insurance will only pay pennies on the dollar for what was lost, but I’m still trying to go through and catalog everything that burned,” said Lana.
Lana said they had talked about starting a GoFundMe to potentially get help with replacing things like fencing which would not be covered by insurance and are more imeadiatly necessary to keep their horses and animals safe as their property is located so close to HWY 197.
On top of equipment, fencing, cars, storage, kennels, firewood, animal feed the family also lost some sentimental items that cannot truly be replaced by insurance.
“Every year I would buy each of my kids a Christmas ornament and those were all in the barn. All our decorations are gone,” said Lana Atkins.
The barn that stood for over four generations is now a pile of scrap metal.
Despite the thousands of dollars of monetary and material loss Lana said she felt blessed.
“I feel very blessed that no one was hurt and we all made it out okay,” said Lana.
“Thank God,” said Amber.
Amber and Lana said that they were grateful that no animals were hurt in the fire.
Riggs and one of the many cats were among the animals that were safely evacuated from the fire.
So far all animals that live on the property are accounted for.
Except for maybe one cat.
“There are two cats that are kind of identical. We call them the cow kitties, cause they’re black and white. It’s so hard to tell them apart that the only way to know for sure if they both made it is if we see them together,” said Lana. “We’ve seen at least one of them so maybe they both made it but we haven’t seen them together yet so we don’t know for sure.”
They hope they find the other 'cow kitty’ soon.
Rural Fire Prevention: Keep Your Weeds Down
Lana credited proper mowing and spraying with helping to protect the family's three homes.
She said the experience reiterated the importance of proper planning for emergency situations like this. And they hoped their close call could remind people why fire safety and emergency preparedness are so important.
“You got to keep the weeds down, that’s number one,” said Lana. “Around the barn the grass was still tall,” she said, “that helped the fire go quickly. But around the houses where everything was cut short the fire had nothing to burn. You’ve got to have a plan in the event that something happens.”
“And make a list of things to grab, important documents and stuff,” said Amber.
For more information on how you can prepare for wildfires click here.
To sign up for Wasco County Citizen alert to be notified of fires in your area click here.
