Why Thirty Mile Fire raged without water

Before the Thirty Mile Fire turned deadly July 10, dispatchers delayed sending a helicopter to drop water on the flames because they were unsure whether they needed permission to draw water from a river containing threatened fish, the U.S. Forest Service said yesterday.

Fourteen firefighters and two hikers were trapped late that afternoon by the fire along the Chewuch River in Okanogan County. Four of the firefighters died. One critically burned firefighter remains in the hospital.

Yesterday, Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., chairman of the House Resources' forest subcommittee, suggested that concerns about Endangered Species Act protections may have contributed to the deaths.

A nearly two-hour delay did occur that day, but not because of the strictures of ESA, said Elton Thomas, fire-management officer for the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests.

Water can be plucked from a river without permission from wildlife agencies during such an incident, Thomas said. However, in the water- and fish-sensitive Methow Valley area, dispatchers may have been simply "trying to do the right thing," he said.

One firefighter trapped that day believes the delay was critical.

"If we'd had the water when we'd asked for it, none of this would have happened," said Ellreese Daniels, a 24-year firefighter. When the water did arrive, it was too late to be useful, he said.

On July 10, a helicopter arrived in Twisp around 10:30 a.m. and waited to be summoned by the commander at the fire 30 miles north of Winthrop, said Jan Flatten, environmental coordinator for the national forests.

Incomplete Forest Service dispatch logs show the fire-crew boss, Pete Kampen, called for the helicopter at 12:08 p.m. But McInnis, citing confidential sources, said calls for water drops came as early as 5:30 a.m.

The helicopter did not take off until about 2 p.m. Dispatchers tried to find someone to authorize taking water from the Chewuch, which has steelhead, salmon and bull trout listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.

It took almost two hours to find District Ranger John Newcom, who was overseeing work on a then-larger fire south of Twisp.

After approval from Newcom, the helicopter took off, attached a bucket at 2:38 p.m. and got to work. Some time around 4 p.m., the fire trapped 14 firefighters and the hikers. They deployed their fire shelters around 5:25 p.m.

Neither the National Marine Fisheries Service nor the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, which manage the fish, must approve water removal in such a case, however, said spokesmen for both agencies.

Nonetheless, there appeared to be confusion over whether approval was needed. "We don't want it to work that way," Thomas said. "We want to make sure folks aren't taking unnecessary time."

The Thirty Mile Fire deaths have raised questions about training, experience and policies. A team of experts has been investigating. A report is expected later this month.

"Everybody has a little piece of the picture, and everybody's trying to fit all those pieces together. But really, only the investigation team has the whole picture, and it's premature for anybody to say that anything was caused by one action," Flatten said.

Whatever the role of the ESA might have been, other judgments clearly led to the tragedy, too, said Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. "It sounds as if there were some misjudgments made about the level of risk throughout that day."

Information from Seattle Times staff reporter Craig Welch and The Associated Press is included in this report. Chris Solomon can be reached at 206-515-5646 or csolomon@seattletimes.com.