Sandwiched between red and white Forest Service trucks, reporters with The Chronicle were escorted through the Iron Creek Campground off Forest Service Road 25 in Randle on Thursday.
On Saturday, June 3, a human-caused fire forced swift evacuations. As of Friday morning, the fire had impacted 17 acres of the campground, which has 98 sites split into various rings.
Field Operations Chief Pete Suver said on the first day he arrived, crews heard trees falling several times an hour. It’s going to be a long time before the campground opens.
The official word is “closed for the foreseeable future,” but canceling reservations for the summer of 2023 may be a safe bet.
It’s among the Gifford Pinchot National Forest’s most popular stays; comparable in popularity and size to Packwood’s La Wis Wis, which is also closed for upgrades this summer.
Few pieces of infrastructure have been affected by the fire at Iron Creek, but the burn path is riddled with hazard trees, someof them are labeled “KILLER TREE” with bright orange tape marked by a skull and crossbones.
Firefighting, especially in the jagged terrain of Cascadian forests, is both costly and dangerous. The understory is thick. Right now, it’s also dry. Burnt trees create stump holes that can be several feet deep. Plus, the old growth trees that are Iron Creek Campground’s crown jewels, Suver said bluntly, “would not feel good if they fell on you.”
The same thing that makes people love camping in the Northwest forests is what makes its fires a challenge, he said.
Several times, Mike McMillan, a U.S. Forest Service public information officer on the fire, called the burning area “treacherous.”
Earlier in the week, a crew of expert tree fellers made their way through the campground to identify and topple as many of the “killers” as they could. A second evaluation by a hazard tree specialist on Friday will help the operations team outline their game plan going forward.
Currently, teams have set a perimeter around the fire with hoses and sprinklers. Within that perimeter, wherever they can’t safely reach could burn. Rain on Friday morning is likely to aid the work.
The Lewis County Fire Marshal has imposed a burn ban, effective Friday. Despite the rainfall, a news release from the Forest Service stated, ground fuels remain dry, and “the public is urged to use extra caution with all potential sources of ignition.”
Community On Edge
Jeania Colman, 72, of Randle, has spent summers at campsite C55 all her life.
She and her 2-year-old cocker spaniel, Ruggins, love the hiking trails and how, despite its popularity, the area stays peaceful, quiet and private.
“I love my Iron Creek. It’s tradition. I camp all summer. But it’s OK. We’ll figure something else out,” Colman said. “We’ll get over there, I just don’t know when.”
She’s trying to be optimistic, but with Iron Creek and La Wis Wis closed, her top pick is North Fork Campground, which lacks the privacy and trail system she and Ruggins long for.
It’s been a challenging year for East Lewis County. The community is on edge. Group chats and Facebook posts are buzzing with questions on the Iron Creek Fire, and the crews are keenly aware.
Last summer, east county residents lived through the Goat Rocks Fire. Caused by lightning in early August 2022, the blaze swelled to more than 6,000 acres toward the end of summer less than two miles from neighborhoods, prompting evacuations and a miserable early fall for Packwood under a blanket of smoke.
But Iron Creek is different, Suver said. He worked on the Goat Rocks Fire, and because it was naturally-caused, plans for management had flexibility. The “containment” percentage never mirrored the growth in acres.
Every decision is made with safety as a priority, and the cost-benefit of utilizing resources next.
Natural fires are just that, and agencies don’t always extinguish them.
But the Iron Creek Fire originated in a campsite. Crews will work until the fire is 100% contained.
When a reporter clarified the definition of “100% containment” by asking if a person could “go out and stick your fingers in it?” Suver chuckled and said, “That’s what the guys do.”
Investigators are still working with witness statements and examination of the scene to determine the exact cause.
“We certainly don’t know if it was intentional, we don’t know if it was accidental, but it was human-caused because there was no lightning,” said McMillan, later adding, “The firefighters, typically, we focus on the fire. We almost don’t even care how it starts. We’re lucky to have work and we like our job. When we come to a fire, our job is to put it out.”
McMillan, who has a degree in journalism, was once a “smoke jumper” who parachuted into hard-to-reach spots for firefighting.
With the thickness of the canopy in Western Washington’s forests, sometimes, that’s what it takes to get fire off the ground. Earlier this week, the Department of Natural Resources provided air support at Iron Creek. But with the canopy preventing water from reaching the understory, McMillan said, continuing with the helicopters would be “pissing in the wind.”
On the first few days of the fire, it was climbing trees. Once it reached the top of one, McMillan said, embers would essentially “rain” down to the ground, creating a “mosaic” of fire. Now, with elimination of a lot of the fuel, there are very few flames as it continues to smolder.
Unlike the Goat Rocks Fire, the geography is in the firefighters’ favor. Three natural barriers, crews are fairly sure, will keep it under control; the campground is surrounded by Iron Creek, the Cispus River and Forest Service roads 25 and 76.
During Goat Rocks, teams at various fires across the state and beyond were fighting over crews. After 110 were working on the fire earlier this week, Iron Creek will only need a couple dozen for the current work.
“You don’t wanna be the guy that just sits on everything just in case you need it,” Suver said, later adding, “The complexity drives the number of resources, which tells you how big a team you need.”
The Cowlitz Valley Ranger District will be the final decision maker when it comes to opening the campground. Even once the fire is 100% out, though, there will be plenty of clean-up work.
“We just encourage people to go find other beautiful places. That's the unfortunate part of a wildfire like this that is human-caused. It's more understandable when the lightning strikes. You know, you can't get too mad at that. But this one was —” McMillan said.
Suver chimed in, “It was preventable.”
For more information, head to www.tinyurl.com/2023IronCreekFire.
