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SUNNY Temp: 81 °F Wind: W at 3 mph Friday, August 2, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Cyberchef E The People Golf Job Network Headbone Zone Wellness Connection Movie Times Newspaper in Education Oregon CarZone Outdoor Journal Personals Prime Times Real Estate Tempo A & E TV Times W3 Magazine CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Destinations Automotive Communities Employment Entertainment Publications Real Estate Recreation Shopping Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Jobs @ Mail Tribune Email Story to a Friend July 31, 2002 John Rigel Jr. plays with his 4-year-old daughter, Ashli, while Ginny Rigel sits on the porch of their Elk Creek Road home. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Get ready to go, then wait Elk Creek families and neighbors help each other prepare to fight the blaze — and to leave By DANI DODGE Mail Tribune On Tuesday, all the Rigel family could do was watch the billowing smoke of the Timbered Rock fire, and wait. Precious quilts, handed down through generations, were stacked by the door of their home on Elk Creek Road. Their sprinklers were going around the clock. Their ingenuity was about spent: With the help of friends and neighbors, they’d already built their own fire truck. "One person had a flatbed, one a 2,500-gallon tank and then a friend brought a high-pressure pump from Prospect," said John Rigel Jr., a rancher and logger with callused hands and a white cowboy hat stained with the sweat of many cattle drives. "I had a lot of hose and then a new neighbor had a backhoe. "We threw together a fire truck." And so they wait: John, 38, his wife, Ginny, 35, and Ashli, their 4-year-old daughter. Wait in the house that Ginny Rigel’s late father built by hewing the logs himself. Wait for the whooshing-tornado sound that proclaims the Timbered Rock fire is reaching out to steal away their dreams. They plan, though, to slap it away. "A bunch of us neighbors decided to stay," Rigel said. "Her and the little one will leave if it gets close, and we’ll stay here and protect the house." The Rigels are one of about 80 families who have been asked to evacuate since a bolt of lightning hit Timbered Rock Point July 12. It is an unroaded area made up of steep terrain and old growth. And while firefighting efforts were focused on other wildfires in the region, the Timbered Rock fire was pushed by winds from the northeast into steep ravines and fed by the heavy forest. From Monday to Tuesday evening, the fire has grown 200 acres to a total of 16,925, reaching within 3 miles of Highway 62 at the junction of Elk Creek Road. (Mapping inaccuracies made previous estimates too low.) "The fire did not make a big run today," fire information officer Howard Hunter said Tuesday. "It slopped over in a few places ... our major fire behavior is spotting." Because it spit embers over the lines, the fire stretched down to within a half-mile of the western flank of Lost Creek Lake, Hunter said. As of Tuesday morning, the estimated cost of fighting the Timbered Rock fire was $2.9 million. There were 988 firefighters working the blaze. They concentrated on a "burning-out operation," blackening the fire lines to remove fuels from the fire’s reach, Hunter said. The Rigels know all about the fire’s reach. It stretched to within yards of their place in 1987 — licking at the banks of Elk Creek behind the house. Although the fire had been building for two weeks, it wasn’t until Thursday that the Rigels got the call to evacuate. Quickly, a few neighbors gathered and figured out what resources they had and what needed to be done — including rounding up 400 head of cattle John manages and getting them to safe ground. This is a place, though, where neighbors help in everything. So they climbed aboard four-wheelers to get the job done. The horses already had been evacuated. The Rigels took their daughter to her grandmother’s for several days and persevered nights without electricity, cooking for neighborhood gatherings on a Coleman stove. On Tuesday, as usual, they gathered for dinner, about five families. Ginny — an accounts payable clerk with spiky blond hair — had made her cobbler early in the afternoon. She only worked half-days Thursday and Friday and hasn’t been back to work since. "This is my home, I can’t leave it," Ginny said. "I’ve lived here all my life, it breaks my heart to drive down the road. It’s like what you see on TV, but never expect at your own home." Ashli, who returned home after the weekend, said she wants to take all her toys if the fire comes to their home. But, she added, "Nothing’s more important than these," grabbing two cans of Play-doh, one green and one purple, from her shelf. "I have to play with them on paper because it’s really messy," she said. Tuesday night, the families gathered at Paula Ragsdale’s ranch house just up the road from the Rigels. Hers was the most threatened of the neighbors’ homes. The men played horseshoes as helicopters buzzed overhead carrying water to the fire’s hot spots. John reasoned that the waiting is "part of the price you pay" to live on beautiful Elk Creek. "If we make it through tonight, I think we’ll be OK," he said. "It’s running across the ridge here and we’ll be out of the woods — then we’ll see who else needs help. " At the fire camp, where hundreds of firefighters milled around readying themselves for a night of fighting the fire to save homes like the Rigels’, Hunter said the prognosis was good. The winds were light and firefighters had a good chance of getting a lot of burnouts done overnight. "But anything can happen — this is a big fire with a lot of fire line," he said. "This is a hard place to fight fire. We have places where there is a fire without a line. "We can’t predict containment." On Elk Creek Road, the horseshoes clank against steel. The Rigels gaze at the darkening sky, the smoke, the helicopters. And wait. Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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