EDITOR’S NOTE — This story has been corrected. No air conditioning is available in the high school room used by the fire management team.
PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles High School is typically quiet each summer as maintenance crews prepare the buildings for the return of school in the fall, but this year, the school’s main building is serving as headquarters in the battle against a wildfire burning in Olympic National Park.
Three classrooms were taken over by the National Incident Management Organization team assigned to manage the slow-moving Paradise Fire, which was ignited by lightning in the Queets River valley in mid-May.
Located about 35 miles northeast of the fire (as the crow flies), the school seems far from the fire lines, but organizers say there isn’t a better place to set up shop.
“The situation is unique. The fire is located deep in a wilderness area. Getting support to [firefighters on the ground] is more challenging,” said Koshare Eagle, spokeswoman for the team managing the fire named because it began near the confluence of the Queets River and Paradise Creek.
As of Thursday, the fire burning 13 miles inside the park’s borders 28 miles southeast of Forks was estimated at 1,585 acres.
It is slowly burning through dry lichen and moss in the canopy of old-growth cedar, Sitka spruce and Douglas fir, as well as in forest duff more than 4 feet deep on steep valley walls.
There is only a small ranger’s station in the area — far too small to house the 60-member support team that ensures the 20 firefighters on the ground have all of the supplies, equipment and information they need to stay safe and effectively fight the stubborn wildfire.
Everyone carries a small fire-management booklet, which is printed on the back with a set of rules that are never to be broken, Eagle said.
The rules keep firefighters safe, and everything the managers do is in some way related to keeping the firefighters on the line safe, she said.
Eagle said the school, with its basic facilities, including bathrooms, easy-to-access electricity and tables and chairs, is a welcome location.
“At many fires, we’re camped out in a field. It’s pretty nice to be in a school,” she said.
When the fire was first located June 14, the park’s fire management team set up in the fire garage at the park’s Port Angeles headquarters to begin organizing the battle to keep the fire from spreading into other areas of the park, or westward into state Department of Natural Resources timber.
When the national team took over June 25, their needs quickly outgrew the fire garage, and they relocated to the high school, a block west of the garage on East Park Avenue.
School buildings also provide more than just a relatively comfortable base.
The facilities mean the team could reduce the amount of equipment it hauls from the fire service equipment depot in Boise, Idaho.
The school also has an easily accessed community information billboard in front of the school and enough space to move large teams of firefighters through the process of checking into or out of a fire assignment.
Two assigned helicopters, with 20 team members including flight crews and helicopter maintenance specialists, are based at a Clearwater field owned by DNR.
The high school hasn’t been quite perfect, Eagle said.
The high school’s Internet server blocks the use of social media sites and commercial email providers — resources heavily utilized by fire managers — so the team had to install their own Internet, she said.
Team members brought their own computers, each preloaded with the specialized software they need to create fire maps, manage the fire budget, manage communications and interface with fire-weather prediction websites.
The classrooms serve as office and meeting space for the team, as well as a place for personnel to check in and out after their 14-day shifts.
Once personnel have had several days away from the fire area, they may return to the Paradise Fire or be assigned to another fire, Eagle said.
The path to the Queets fire location is steep, not maintained and in many places simply disappears into the old-growth rain forest, said Eric Martinez, communications unit leader.
Helicopters have proven unreliable to get supplies to the firefighters’ base camp along the Queets riverbank because of limited visibility due to smoke or fog.
On Thursday, a Washington Conservation Corps crew of trail builders checked in at the high school to work on the Queets River trail — clearing, building and widening the trail to allow support crews to move supplies by pack train.
Of the three classrooms, one houses the team’s finance manager and planning section.
The finance manager tracks the team members’ hours, supplies, food, hotel and other costs.
In the planning section, several people keep track of the personnel, making sure they have hotel rooms and flights home and file daily “diaries” kept by every member of the team.
A map specialist plots the fire and sends the data to a contracted company to render an accurate map of the fire’s daily activities.
In another room, a radio team communicates with firefighters using two repeaters and a link system installed on remote Olympic peaks to allow for direct handheld radio communications and through a satellite communications system that allows firefighters to use smartphones, data support, text messaging and have face-to-face conversations about the fire situation, Martinez said.
The video interface is being tested at the Paradise Fire site, a technological concept Martinez said could be used for commanders at headquarters to see real-time fire behavior from the firefighter’s point-of-view.
“We’re looking at innovative technology we can use across the nation in all kinds of incidents,” he said.
In the third room, a group of community communications specialists prepare news releases, talk to the media, update social media sites, prepare community information meetings and create fire information boards to be posted at public sites.
The fire information boards are set up in communities around the Olympic Peninsula and at major tourism sites such as Hurricane Ridge and Olympic National Park’s visitor centers.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
