Fire Threatens Anarchist / Sidley
On Thursday, Aug 16th, lightning strikes in the valley between Oroville and the Canadian border started two significant wildfires. The fire spread quickly towards Canada due to high winds. The fire threatened structures in the Nine Mile Place, Caribou, and Raven Hill areas as well as residents in the Sidley area, near Arosa Ranch on Hwy 3. The Anarchist Mtn Fire Dept. (AMFD) and Provincial Wildfire Management resources worked together on this fire. There were at least 3 helicopters, 2 – 3 provincial fire crews, some bulldozers and all of the AMFD members working this fire. Fire Chief Grob faced this major wildland fire on his second day as our Fire Chief. Urs and the Fire Dept officers led the local operation very effectively, with the Dept. performed admirably. During the fire some firefighting resources were held in reserve at the Fire Hall in case the situation worsened on the mountain. A thank you also goes out to former Fire Chief, Joe Simoes who assisted on-site bringing his own pumper truck to support AMFD.
The Fire Dept. requested that the Community Society use our emergency communications system to call an Alert which later was upgraded to an Evacuation order. It worked well. We have learned some lessons from this first real world use of the system. The ENCOMM committee will assess how the system performed.
Here are a few pictures, from Gerry Pelle a local resident.
Thanks to all those that brought this event to a successful conclusion for our Community.
Mark McKenney, AMCS President
