Fire Is Quick, Deadly Farmer Killed, Others Barely Escape 60-Mph Inferno

Three generations of the Heider family stood in their knee-high wheat field to consider fleeing the distant prairie fire.

The wind was blowing away from them and the fire was too far off to pose a threat, decided the family patriarch, 65-year-old Robert Heider. “It looks a ways off,” he said.

The family returned to their combines to finish a day’s work of harvest.

A half-hour later, , Heider would be dead. He was the victim of a freak wind change that propelled a wall of fire across the prairie at 60 mph toward him and his family.

Heider’s son, grandson and hired hand escaped unharmed.

The 14-year-old grandson, Gavin, and his 13-year-old girlfriend were driving a combine 100 yards in front of Heider when the fire caught them.

The combine’s door ignited, and the two teenagers escaped by diving out a side window, then stumbling through ink black billows of smoke to safety.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Jim Heider, Bob’s son.

The fire burned 20,000 acres of wheat and prairie in western Adams County late Wednesday and early Thursday.

It blazed so hot around Heider’s combine that it reduced fields to stubble without touching the soil. It still smoldered Thursday afternoon.

Fire officials say the blaze began at 4:21 p.m. beside railroad tracks near Tokio. It remained near the tracks until about 5:20 p.m., when gusts intensified and changed direction - directly toward the Heider fields.

When Jim Heider realized the danger, he raced across fields in a Dodge pickup to warn his father and son. His truck was floored at 40 mph, but the fire was catching him, he said.

“My first thought was to get to the combines, but it was moving too fast,” he said. “I barely got out myself.”

As smoke thickened, Jim Heider realized rescue was impossible. He found a road in the field and returned home, hopeful that he’d reunite with his family.

At least 120 firefighters from Adams County and surrounding communities battled the blaze into the night. By the time it was extinguished at 3 a.m. Thursday, it left behind an 11-mile curl of blackened earth.

The fire was likely caused by railroad crews repairing tracks, said Deni Atkinson, chief of Adams County Fire Protection District No. 1.

Further investigation, aided by the state Department of Natural Resources, is pending.

“It was a screw-up, I’m sure,” Atkinson said.

Officials from the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad Company told local farmers that a van dropping off supplies to the crews likely sparked the fire, according to Rep. Mark Schoesler, a Ritzville wheat farmer.

But railroad officials in the company’s Seattle headquarters would not comment.

“We’re not speculating on the cause, we’re investigating,” said company spokesman Gus Melonas.

Adams County officials say it’s too early to put a dollar value on the fire damage. Among the wreckage were a barn, three Heider family combines, a tractor, a pickup and a car.

About 15 neighboring homes were evacuated by police, who dashed between scattered farmhouses as the fire raced out of control.

Telephone poles charred by the fire toppled, leaving hundreds without power. Most homes had power restored by Thursday evening.

As the damage was being cleaned up, the loss of Heider began to sink in for his family and the Ritzville farming community.

“In Ritzville, you don’t hear of people, you know them. I’m sure everyone is going through personal grief for Bob,” said Jay Weise, Adams County undersheriff.

Heider was described by family and friends as a fun-loving man with a wry sense of humor and a passion for baseball.

Hard work and expertise allowed the second-generation farmer to build a 500-acre plot into a family business with 4,000 acres of wheat, bluegrass, hay and potatoes.

He was an active booster of Ritzville High School sports, an Army veteran, avid traveler, bowler and golfer who trimmed his handicap to 21 last month.

“He was a fun-loving, honest man,” said Melvin Gust, a lifelong friend. “I never had to write down the golf score with Bob. I always knew it was right.”

“He was just the best kind of friend you can be,” said friend Cynthia Langenheder.

Most of all, he enjoyed his family, Gust said. He looked forward to watching his grandsons play football next fall, and passing down the farming trade.

“I think he got a kick out of teaching his grandson how to drive the combine,” Gust said.

He leaves his wife, Evelyn, whom he met in elementary school, two sons, two daughters and eight grandchildren.

“I’m sad, I’m lost. I lived with the man for 43 years,” said Evelyn, outside their Ritzville home.

But the fire called to her mind Bob’s favorite phrase - “It could have been worse.”

The fire missed their white farmhouse by a few hundred yards and a neighbor’s by 15 feet.

And instead of mourning just her husband, she could have lost Gavin, Jim and others harvesting the fields, she said.

“We’ll get through this through prayer,” she said.

And help. All the family’s combines were destroyed by the fire, so area farmers pledged Thursday to harvest the remaining fields.