NESPELEM - The Colville Confederated Tribes issued a statement Sept. 17 praising response to the fire that threatened homes, the Colville Tribal Convalescent Center and the tribal agency Sept. 17.
     The statement:

     A coordinated, multi-community response of firefighters and law enforcement, emergency workers and volunteers, was a “model of cooperation,” Colville Business Council Vice-Chairman John Stensgar said today.
     Stensgar praised the efforts of a wide range of emergency-response personnel from several surrounding communities, and of local citizens who volunteered to help “in whatever way they could to save lives.”
     The “Highway 155/Milepost 38” fire is believed to have begun Wednesday afternoon. By early evening it threatened scores of homes, apartment complexes, and the Colville Tribal Convalescent Center on the Colville Agency campus.
     At least two hundred people had to be evacuated from their residences and the center. The fire was contained early this morning after scorching more than 1,900 acres north and east of state Highway 155 between Elmer City and Nespelem.
     Stensgar said that the (North Cascades chapter of the American) Red Cross, the Scared Heart Catholic Church in Nespelem and dozens of volunteers converged at Nespelem to help evacuate residents of the convalescent center, apartments and homes threatened by the fire.
     Area police and firefighters helped coordinate fire protection efforts, building evacuations and structure protection, without serious injuries of any kind. The Okanogan County Corrections Department offered to accept inmates from the Tribal Corrections facility, in case the fire reached that far.
     “It was just an amazing example of what can happen when people work together in an emergency situation,” Stensgar said. “Everybody stayed calm, pitched in, and did whatever they could.”
     Local gas station owners Gary and Sindy Jackson brought their flatbed truck to the convalescent center to transport beds to the Nespelem Community Center, where residents were taken for the night. Stensgar said center residents would return to the facility today.
     Scores of firefighters battled the blaze, which is believed to have started along the highway. The Tribes’ Mount Tolman Fire Center crews, led by Incident Commander Adam Bearcub, were first to attack the blaze; firefighters and police were dispatched from Grand Coulee, Coulee Dam and Elmer City.
     Washington State Patrol and Okanogan County law enforcement assisted as well.
     The causes of this fire, and of several others which apparently began on the reservation at approximately the same time, are under investigation.
     Colville Business Council Members Ernie Williams and Harvey Moses, together with the Tribes’ Executive Director, John Gonzales, helped to oversee the center evacuation and other emergency efforts.
     “This was an extremely well-coordinated effort,” Williams said today. “Our thanks go out to everyone who came out to help.”
     Williams said at times the flames reached 60 to 100 feet high as the fire topped a hill south of Nespelem and headed toward the tribal campus. The White Buffalo Housing Project, as well as the Tribes’ Senior HUD Apartment Complex, were in its path.
     “The fire was very hot and very dangerous,” Williams said. “It’s due to the hard work of so many people that no lives were lost.”
     In addition to tribal police and firefighters, tribal OSHA personnel and EMS workers, staff at the convalescent center and workers from the Tribes’ Trading Post convenience store and staff and trusties from its corrections center assisted in moving evacuees.
     The Sacred Heart Church opened its doors to people who had to flee the fire, providing food and a place to rest.
     “The Colville Tribes appreciates all the hard work of our neighboring communities, from Coulee Dam to Elmer City to Omak, and all the volunteers, from the Red Cross to the employees at the Trading Post, in helping us to avoid a terrible tragedy,” Stensgar said. “It could have been so much worse.”