‘Extended family’ devastated by fire

POMEROY, Wash. – In a city so small that some people rely on police scanners to hear the latest local news, a nearly 50,000-acre wildfire burning down the road wasn’t just buzz – it highlighted for some longtime residents what it means to live in a rural community.

The people who lost their homes to the flames weren’t just neighbors – they were high school buddies, old boyfriends and relatives. Residents could not only list the names of people who were evacuated, they could also guess where those people were staying. A shelter set up for evacuees closed, unneeded because most people bunked with family and friends.

“The whole community is like an extended family,” said Marvin Scoggin, whose home burned.

For Garfield County, population 2,400, the loss was enormous, said Clay Barr, director of Garfield County Emergency Management.

Garfield County is a 710-square-mile mix of farm fields and timber-laden gullies and drainages in the diverse Palouse country. Roughly two-thirds of its residents, about 1,600, live in Pomeroy, which serves as the centerpiece. Businesses in town revolve around serving area farmers who grow wheat, barley, bluegrass and hay. The largest employer is the Umatilla National Forest.

So when the School fire broke out Aug. 5, and quickly blew up to thousands of acres, many area residents were affected. More than 100 people were forced to evacuate, and the fire burned more than 109 residences – a mix of seasonal cabins, trailers, recreational vehicles and permanent homes – and 106 outbuildings.

The dollar estimate of the damage was not yet available. Don Ferguson, a fire spokesman, estimated that fewer than 10 permanent homes were lost.

Regardless, the area was devastated, Barr said.

“There are sticks and ash,” he said. “That is all that’s left in those areas.”

The remnants of Doug Young’s home sit among the ashes.

“I have nothing left,” he said. “I have a few clothes and a pickup and my dog.”

The photos he took of his burned home showed only a standing brick fireplace next to rubble and charred appliances, such as an electric range.

He estimated his house, which he built with his father and siblings more than 30 years ago, to be worth about $50,000.

But like others, he wasn’t left homeless. He stayed at his mother’s home in town.

Marvin Scoggin, 42, who watched his home go up in flames, said it was the entire community, an extended family of sorts, that supported his family – wife Sarah and three daughters – after they lost their home.

“(We felt) like the ladder was kicked out from underneath us, but our family and friends and our community caught us,” Scoggin said.

As the fire burned its way toward his home, Scoggin said that a friend came with a sprayer on the back of a pickup truck to help protect his home. Sarah’s father also came to the house, helping to build fire breaks, after seeing the smoke from his home in town, Sarah Scoggin said.

For the Scoggin family, the loss wasn’t just one of property – it was a loss of memories.

The family has had a homestead in the area since 1877, and the house was one that Marvin’s great aunt built in 1917, Marvin Scoggin said.

But phone calls, house calls and offers of help have been coming in, Sarah Scoggin said.

“It seems like I talk on the telephone all day,” she said.