High winds, fire leave exhausted town of Republic ‘tense’
The massive fire marching toward Republic, Washington, stayed out of the town on Saturday.
“I don’t see any flames coming over the top of the hill,” Republic City Councilman Larry Heming said late Saturday afternoon. “I’m happy.”
Fire officials say bulldozer lines built to protect the town held despite high winds. Residents had been deeply concerned about the fate of the town because of the predicted windstorm and the proximity of the 313 square-mile North Star fire. Washington National Guard troops were deployed in case an evacuation was ordered. But even as the winds pushed into Republic, the downtown “looked like business as usual,” Heming said.
At the Republic Brewing Company, Emily Burt added: “It isn’t over.”
As she spoke, she could still see a brisk wind outside. After two weeks of heavy smoke covering the town, closures, cancellations, low-level evacuations and false reports of mandatory evacuations, Burt knows better than to celebrate.
“It’s exhausting feeling like something’s coming but not knowing when,” Burt said as customers chatted in the background. “It’s tense but also boring.”
Boring, she said, because usual summer activities are off-limits. Tourists are gone.
She and her husband opened the brewery in the town’s historic fire station about five years ago.
“This should be my biggest month of the year, but it will be more like April or January,” she said.
Burt said she feels safe in town. On the other hand, after the sheriff suggested on Friday that people consider leaving, she and her husband decided to send their son to Spokane with her mother-in-law.
“You’re just kind of in this weird in-between land,” Burt said.
Saturday evening was quiet at the hospital in Republic, where the emergency room is open. The hospital transferred 15 patients to Colville or Spokane’s Deaconess Hospital last week, with the last of the long-term care patients leaving Thursday, said Brenda Parnell, CEO of the Ferry County Public Hospital District.
If a mandatory evacuation is ordered in Republic, the hospital will remain open and keep the emergency room operational. “We are not going anywhere,” Parnell said Saturday evening. “There is plenty of defense at this facility.”
Yet Parnell said the hospital is not a shelter for evacuees. “We need to be here for those who really need it,” she said.