LOCAL FIRE UNDER CONTROL
But 55 are burning around the territory

By Sarah Davison

The Whitehorse forest fire is now under control.

"There’s a line around it, and we’re comfortable at this time to call it under control," Keith Kepke, head of fire control at the Forest Fire Control Centre in Whitehorse, said this morning.

"We don’t expect any further developments or problems."

Fire crews are beginning to mop up the blaze which prompted an engergency evacuation of the Echo Valley subdivision, just west of city limits, on Thursday night. About 115 people had been fighting it.

Amazed Whitehorse residents looked on Thursday and Friday as, within hours, the tinder-dry forest conditions turned a small spot fire at the base of Haeckel Hill into a roaring furnace just seven kilometers from downtown Whitehorse.

But cool and cloudy weather over the weekend helped fire fighters in their battle to stem the blaze. Now, the fire crews are heading into the 1,500-hectare area to put out remaining hotspots.

"They’re 200 feet into the fire edge, and they’ve extinguished all the fires within those 200 feet," said Kepke.

But there’s no time for the forest service to catch its breath.

The Whitehorse fire has been joined by 55 other fires burning across the territory. Thunderstorms throughout the weekend brought lightning as well as rain.

"The number of fires just went over 100 for the year, which is twice the average total," said Kepke. "We’ve had warm, dry weather with lots of lightning.

"Most of the fires started in the last day or two. Some have the potential to get quite big. A couple were growing quickly last night."

One is already big, and expected to get bigger -- an 1,800-hectare fire 40 kilometers northeast of Watson Lake.

And smoke has polluted the air in Dawson City as more than 20 fires burn in that region. Kepke said two are quite big, and one came close to the Klondike Cutoff at midnight Sunday.

Dawson City RCMP and the Emergency Measures Organization said no evacuation planes are necessary.

Kepke said there are so many fires now it’s impossible to fight them all. It’s a matter of evaluating and prioritizing the most important.

"Some you can’t fight. They’re up and rolling along the tree-tops."

While the fire crews' attention is directed elsewhere, residents of Echo Valley are collecting their thoughts and possessions, and attempting to move back into their homes.

On Sunday, a thick, blue haze sat in the sky over a scorched and smoking Haeckel Hill, which looms 900 metres (3,000 feet) above Echo Valley.

The steanch of woodsmoke was heavy in the air, and the sound of distant helicopters disrupted the peace of the valley.

"Everything stinks," said Echo Valley resident Anne Taylor, as she unpacked her computer. "While the fire didn’t take the homes down, it certainly left its mark."

She’ll be spending the next few days washing and dry-cleaning all her clothes. Taylor has already washed down her white walls, which the smoke turned to a smudgy gray color.

But it’s good to be back.

"I don’t have a thing in the house yet, but it’s so good to be back in the building and know it’s here. I’m enormously relieved."

Now it’s a matter of trying to get things organized once more.

"You can get stuff out in two hours. But it’ll take me two to three weeks to get back in," said Taylor, who has a library of 4,000 volumes to consider.

She was celebrating her 40^th birthday when the order came Thursday night to move out.

"The evacuation order came at 11, and at midnight, it became my birthday," she said. "My friends sang 'Happy Birthday' between loads to the truck. One of my friends suggested I try not to make it that memorable."

Taylor said the experience was terrifying, and likened it to being in the middle of a war zone.

"At one point, I had a helicopter right over my house and a police car in my driveway with sirens going. There was a thick cloud of smoke with choppers going constantly, at least one plane, and then they started chainsaws.

"There were all these noises, and there was a lot of activity. And the smoke made everything difficult because you couldn’t see. The smoke hurt your eyes and your throat."

Another Echo Valley resident, Ali Wagner, said it was the worst experience of her life. She and her husband, Mike, were given 15 minutes to leave.

We didn’t believe we’d have to move. You don’t believe it until the last minute. You feel like an idiot. You don’t know what to take. We went to a friend’s house who was here at the time. He was the only sane person in the house."

The smoke was so thick they couldn’t see the RCMP car in the driveway, only the beams from its headlights. The place still smells of smoke, and Wagner said the stench has destroyed her carpets and curtains.

"But right now, I’m so thankful nothing burned down. We left so much stuff behind that’s not expensive, but that means a lot to us -- pictures, things from traveling. Lots of memories.

"There’s 20 years of our work here, and we had to leave it behind. It was the most shocking experience."

Neighbors and friends rallied quickly to help residents of the rural suburb collect their possessions and move out. Many residents have animals, making the move especially difficult.

"The chickens were easy," said Al Alcock. "We just threw hay in the back of the truck, grabbed the chickens out the coop, and threw them in the back. It’s a closed-in pickup with a canopy.

"They were easy. But the horses were a different matter…

"We were trying to load the horses into the back of Tom’s (a friend’s) truck, but they were so spooked from the smoke and the fire, we couldn’t load them.

"So then we tried we tried to hitch them to the back of the truck and drive out slowly, but they weren’t having any of that.

"You can’t open the corral in a fire because they just go back to the barn because that’s where they feel the safest.

"In the end, I saddled the gelding and trailed the filly and rode out."

Alcock said it wasn’t the best ride of his life.

"They were freaked out and really tired and exhausted from trying to load them into the truck. Going at two miles an hour was breakneck speed and periodically the filly would get the lead rope tangled up around them.

"I was in an uncomfortable state of exhaustion by this time. It was not a good experience."

By the time Alcock left, everyone else had already gone. Spectators report a strange progression of pickup trucks travelling the highway, loaded down with chickens, geese and goats.

"It was bizarre," said Alcock.

At the height of the tensions on Thursday night, Doug Moyer, an Echo Valley resident, took three people up on his roof to watch and photograph the flames.

"There was mostly a lot of black smoke pouring out... and then we could see the flames when it hit the top of the ridge... It sure was really fierce, awesome, even. You could see the flames eating the trees," he said.

But Moyer said that although there was a great deal of traffic in the community as people drove by to see the spectacle, nobody in Crestview really felt their safety threatened.

Joann Coates of Crestview conceded that she was scared on Thursday night.

"The top of the hill just lit up; it was bright red. It just looked pretty scary. The thing we were concerned about (Thursday) night was if the wind had shifted -- we could have been in trouble." She said that she was up until 3 or 4 am Friday morning listening to progress reports on the radio.

"I think the whole neighborhood did," she said.