I-5 brushfire leaves motorists steaming
Friday, August 15, 2008 11:30 PM PDT
By Amy M.E. Fischer
Printable version
E-mail this articleAn overheating motorhome southbound on Interstate 5 between Woodland and La Center sparked a large brush fire that brought traffic to a standstill for hours in the 90-plus degree heat Friday afternoon.
The Washington State Patrol shut down I-5 in both directions at milepost 17 from 12:47 p.m. until 3:30 p.m. while 80 firefighters from multiple agencies battled the blaze that eventually engulfed 10 to 20 acres, officials said.
“It’s a bad time. It’s Friday afternoon, the temperature’s excruciatingly high. It was a bad situation,” WSP Trooper Stephen Robley said.
Authorities evacuated two houses and warned the occupants of two others, Robley said. Ultimately, no structures burned, and no one was injured.
According to the Columbian newspaper, the fire began when a motorhome with overheating brakes pulled over to the inside shoulder of the freeway and caught fire shortly after 12:30 p.m. The driver pulled forward to escape the flames.
That’s when the blaze spread to the median, then crossed to the northbound side of the freeway, Robley said. The flames spread rapidly, gobbling up brush, blackberry bushes and trees on both sides of I-5, he said.
“One of the fir trees was probably burned at least 30 to 40 feet up,” Robley said. “It was very hot and it burned quickly.”
Soon, traffic was backed up more than 10 miles in each direction, from a couple miles north of Kalama down to the Interstate 205 fork at Vancouver. Drivers parked and got out of their vehicles, blocking emergency responders trying to reach the fire, Robley said.
“I had to get on my PA system to tell people to get in their vehicles to allow emergency vehicles to get through,” he said.
Emergency responders arrived from Cowlitz County, Clark County, Vancouver, Woodland, La Center, the state Department of Natural Resources, BNSF Railroad, American Medical Response and the WSP, Robley said. All the agencies had drilled together under a unified command to prepare for such a situation, he said.
Meanwhile, many drivers tried to escape the traffic jam. Some even drove north in the southbound lanes.
“We had lots and lots of reports of vehicles trying to turn around, drive up on the shoulders, turn around in the median,” said WSP communications officer Anna Green.
Kalama Police community service officer Cody Traub worked to unclog a Kalama freeway on-ramp, where drivers would see the standstill traffic, do a U-turn and drive the wrong way down the ramp toward oncoming cars. Several cars containing children and dogs broke down, overheated or ran out of gas, and Traub held traffic aside so they could get back into town, he said.
“I didn’t want them sitting there in the heat,” he said.
Eventually, he blocked the on-ramp and directed drivers to use Highway 30 in Oregon or Green Mountain Road, a route between Kalama and Woodland. Later Friday afternoon, even Green Mountain Road was impassable — a semi-truck overheated and blocked both lanes in the 4000 block, Traub said.
WSP troopers spent the afternoon and evening assisting disabled vehicles on the freeway, and AMR aided two drivers with heat-related medical emergencies, Robley said.
“This is just a reminder to advise people when they’re traveling in hot weather, it’s a good idea to carry water with them,” he said.
Relief arrived in the form of a tow truck. The owner of TLC Towing showed up with a truckload of ice-cold bottles of water, which he passed out to emergency workers and people waiting for traffic to clear, Robley said.
Two hours after the freeway completely reopened, traffic was at a crawl between La Center and Kalama. Broken-down vehicles dotted the shoulders of I-5. As of 6:30 p.m., dozens of emergency workers lingered on the blackened landscape. Robley said the DNR would remain on scene until 9 p.m. to ensure the blaze would not re-flare.
Reporter Thacher Schmid contributed to this story.
mom of 2 wrote on Aug 15, 2008 11:44 PM:
just me again wrote on Aug 16, 2008 8:26 AM:
pilotmom wrote on Aug 16, 2008 8:49 AM:
For those that drove in the opposite direction through the median: you could have started another fire in the brush just from the heat of the engine. Just because you see emergency vehicles driving in the opposite directions doesn't mean you can too! "
frankenzombie wrote on Aug 16, 2008 10:02 AM:
chick3k wrote on Aug 16, 2008 11:06 AM:
Billy Hill wrote on Aug 16, 2008 12:12 PM:
Louie wrote on Aug 16, 2008 1:50 PM:
Thursday it took me 20 minutes to get from the Longview side of the Lewis and Clark Bridge to the Oregon side because of a wreck on the Oregon side.
When in Seattle stuck in ferry traffic a couple of weeks ago my car overheated and was blowing this awful blue smoke so I don't let my car idle but turn it off if I get stuck in traffic on a hot day. No sense adding to an already stressful mess.
A big KUDOS to those helping others with water and the like. That is being a 'good neighbor' of which we have too few. "
Beer&Skittles wrote on Aug 16, 2008 5:05 PM:
pilotmom wrote on Aug 16, 2008 8:17 PM:
Seeing how Woodland PD only had two officers available to answer over 15 calls for service during this ordeal not too mention having traffic clogging every single intersection in the downtown corridor in the city. It is an almost impossible task to clear all of the streets when we have 6 major roadways feeding into the downtown core all stopped with cars bumper to bumper with no where to divert cars. Kalama has one way on and one way off the freeway with no feeder street or major intersections. If you want to be upset with the Woodland Police not being visible during this ordeal, call Mayor Chuck Blum and tell him to hire more police officers. Besides, one of the two officers were tied up assisting at mile post 18 so people would not use the turn-around in the median when Kalama FD was having to drive northbound in the southbound lane of I-5 to get to the fire scene.
Just because you do not see the police, does not mean they are not helping elsewhere. "
rb wrote on Aug 18, 2008 1:07 PM:
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