Bonds forged by fire

Nov. 1--MALDEN -- The weather isn't cutting the 250 residents of Malden and the surrounding area any slack.

Snow that fell before Halloween remained for days in a slick layer on the ground that just weeks earlier was charred by a fire so savage it forced everyone in this rural Whitman County community and its vicinity to flee for their lives.

The Babb Road Wildfire claimed an estimated 80 percent of the homes in Malden and 75 percent in nearby Pine City on Labor Day.

Malden's city hall, library, post office, fire station, food bank, a city maintenance hall and a Masonic Lodge, with an active membership, are gone.

On block after block, steps lead to houses where all that remains are foundations, chimneys, the metal remnants of household appliances and mattress springs, or even less.

Yet signs of hope are already emerging. Town residents are quick to point out how miraculous it was no one died.

Foundations are under construction on some lots. Several remaining houses are decorated for fall.

But some are terrified that an early, harsh winter will stifle the town's spirit and create another disaster, that unlike the fire, might result in fatalities.

"This is a rural community that has already faced a number of challenges," said Aaron McMurray, chief strategy officer of the Innovia Foundation, which so far has pledged $160,000 to help victims of eastern Washington wildfires that includes $150,000 from an anonymous corporation.

"Many people were already on the financial cliff, and this kind of pushed them over," McMurray said.

Deep roots, deep loss

Malden's population has families with roots that go back for generations. They remember a town of tidy houses and stay-at-home moms where children roamed freely before the railroad -- the major employer -- left in the late 1970s.

It's also become a refuge for retirees, people weary of life in urban areas and some families who can't afford a home elsewhere.

Whether Malden will be a whisper of what it was before the fire, or something greater, depends on how successful the residents are in identifying their goals and keeping them in front of decision-makers, said Scott Hokonson, a Malden town councilor and volunteer firefighter, who was recently hired as project manager of the Pine Creek Community Restoration and Long-Term Recovery Group.

By some measures, Malden was already slipping into obscurity. A U.S. Highway 195 exit sign lists neighboring Rosalia, but not Malden.

All of the brick-and-mortar businesses were gone. A soda machine that burned was the only place in town to buy anything, Hokonson said.

Since the fire, Malden residents have had to drive 6 miles to Rosalia to pick up their mail.

The Seattle district office of the U.S. Postal Service has indicated the Malden post office probably will be rebuilt, said Mary Smith, a customer relations coordinator for the Postal Service in Spokane.

The post office also confirmed it will maintain the Malden ZIP code and will hold a meeting for community input at a date not yet scheduled, Hokonson said.

Viewing fire as an opportunity

Hokonson and Dan Harwood, a fellow councilor and volunteer firefighter, are among those encouraging their neighbors to view the mostly blank slate left by the fire as an opportunity.

A new community building could provide space for large events such as town council meetings, club gatherings and weddings.

Stronger connections to a fiber optic network could help the town recruit an employer, Harwood said.

The natural beauty of the wooded valley where the town sits remains, giving Malden the potential to feel like a state park with houses, Hokonson said.

The former railroad bed has been turned into the graveled Palouse to Cascades Trail, and it is beginning to attract horseback riders and cyclists in warmer months, Harwood said.

"It's a pretty cool town," he said. "But we haven't figured out a way to grow after the railroad left. Maybe this is it? It's a horrible way to do it, but you have to think positive."

Firsty, find shelter

As community leaders begin to plan the future, businesses, government agencies and volunteers are scrambling to complete a lengthy list of tasks, complicated greatly by what was destroyed.

One of the most immediate concerns is shelter. Typically, insurance might give families money to rent an apartment close to where their house was after a fire.

"Early estimates show that two-thirds of the families did not have home insurance because their homes were deemed uninsurable," according to a news release from Innovia.

Even if more of the town's families had insurance, any place Malden might have had to rent was destroyed, forcing many people to leave temporarily.

"There isn't anywhere for them to go, because they can't afford anywhere else," said Matt McLain, principal of the Rosalia School District that serves Malden.

Harwood and Hokoson identified 25 temporary residences last week, including RVs, campers and tiny home-style sheds, but it wasn't entirely clear how many were being lived in full time.

Malden limits occupancy in campers and RVs to two weeks without clearance from the town council, Harwood said.

Before a Tuesday council meeting, Hokonson said he didn't believe anyone had requested permission. Council members said at the meeting they will take a sympathetic stance on the two-week rule and issue waivers for campers as long as families get permission from the council and are legally connected to sewer, water and power.

As much as he backs being flexible, Harwood, a board member of the long-term recovery group, said he is worried. He fears the potential consequences of a space heater left on because a trailer is too cold or of someone firing up a blow torch to thaw a frozen water line.

"Nothing scares me more than someone trying to winter in a RV," he said. "Not only do we have to worry about fire, we have to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning. It just amplifies the dangers."

Hokonson is encouraging anyone without adequate housing to seek a year of free rent through Community Action Center in Whitman County, which is distributing a total of $176,000 from the Washington State Department of Commerce.

Getting through the winter is just one of the hurdles involving housing. Lumber prices are skyrocketing. Lumber mills reduced production early in the coronavirus pandemic because of health regulations and an anticipated drop in demand, and Canadian imports have decreased.

Doling out money, supplies

While families decide where to live, help is rolling in from a variety of places.

The Rosalia Lions Club took over Rosalia's community center and gave out in excess of $50,000 in gift cards, toiletries, food, clothing, bedding, carbon monoxide detectors, housewares, hats, gloves, snow boots and heat tape, said Linda Pritchett, the club's secretary and treasurer.

A total of 117 families received a payment of at least $150 in September and at least $350 in October, with the amounts varying based on household size, Pritchett said.

"All of the money has gone back to the people," she said. "All we had (as expenses were) a dumpster and printer ink."

The fire prompted the Rosalia School District to delay its start by a week. Then it brought students back in phases because of the coronavirus, starting with the elementary school, then adding the junior high and later the high school.

Of the school district's 168 students, 23 lost their homes and three families are doing online instruction through the district, one from Seattle and two from Spokane, McLain said.

Showers and extra counseling are among the services the school is providing.

"It's going to be a long process for sure," he said.

Safety checks

With property owners' written authorization, the state of Washington is doing free hazardous waste assessments of people's properties, checking for materials such as asbestos that used to be common in insulation, siding and other materials, Hokonson said.

Anything that's found will be removed at no charge to property owners, even if they don't have insurance.

Other entities are focused on infrastructure. One of the only town assets that doesn't need immediate attention is the municipal water system, which is intact, Hokonson said.

Avista has been among the most prominent, while it cooperates with a Washington Department of Natural Resources investigation to determine the cause of the fire and conducts its own investigation.

"Avista's investigation has determined the primary cause of the fire was extreme high winds, a weather event that triggered wildfires and affected electric utilities throughout the Pacific Northwest," according to a Sept. 18 statement from Avista, its most recent update on the source of the fire.

As of mid-September, the company had not "found any evidence the fires were caused by any deficiencies in its equipment, maintenance activities or vegetation management practices, although it has become aware of instances where, during the course of the storm, otherwise healthy trees and limbs, located in areas outside its maintenance right of way, broke under the extraordinary wind conditions and caused damage to its energy delivery system," according to the news release.

The company is paying for the mobile structure where Hokonson's office is housed, equipping it with computers, desks, chairs and other office equipment. It's also compensating Hokonson, who worked as a full-time volunteer in the job for almost six weeks after the fire.

His life mirrors those of the people he is serving. Married with three children, he knocked on people's doors the day of the fire until the sheriff's department evacuated fire crews.

Harwood tried to activate the town's warning siren, but the power already was cut. He was relieved sheriff's department deputies were on the scene, telling people to leave.

"That's all we had time for," Hokonson said. "We had time to save people, but not stuff."

He is commuting five days a week to Malden from Spokane, where his family is living temporarily and his children are attending school.

They came to Malden to renovate a 1909 Sears kit house and found others who were remodeling homes of the same era.

Disaster recovery

This is Hokonson's first time doing disaster recovery. Previously he worked as a liaison between a developer he was employed by and residents of the new communities the developer constructed.

A number of resources, such as a notebook of information provided to him by Whitman County Emergency Management, are helping him figure out what to do.

Initially, he planned to help until his classes at Eastern Washington University in urban management and social work started. But he has postponed his education, noting the responsibilities he recently assumed as project manager of the Pine Creek Community Restoration Long-Term Recovery Group are important.

The group was formed as an entity to represent everyone hurt by the Babb Road Wildfire, including those who live in Malden, Pine City and in the areas surrounding those towns. Unlike a municipality, it can give money to individuals.

Avista is attending to other needs, too, such as installing address markers at residences to reduce the confusion crews encountered when they arrived in town and couldn't tell where they were supposed to clean or build.

The company has also provided meeting tents, tables, chairs and meals, along with two surplus trucks and a snow plow attachment.

More assistance could be on the way.

An application has been submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency seeking help on infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and public buildings, for Whitman County and eight other Washington counties damaged by late summer blazes.

A separate application was filed for aid that would help individuals replace their homes, though that request stands a high chance of rejection, said Karina Shagren, a spokeswoman for Washington State's Emergency Management Division.

The last time that type of federal help was awarded was for the Oso landslide that killed more than 40 people in 2014, Shagren said.

"It's very, very difficult to get," she said. "Within the last 10 years, we have never received it for wildfires."

Even when help is available, it takes effort to administer. Two of the most useful donations at this stage, Hokonson said, are gift cards for groceries and gas, to reduce transportation costs.

The nearest full-service grocery stores and medical clinics are about 30 minutes away, in Cheney and Colfax.

"We're out in an ocean of wheat, and we don't have resources close by," Hokonson said.

A number of people donated items like furniture, which was appreciated, McLain said, but the community had to find places to store them because it will likely be a year before the first replacement homes are finished.

Dividing up a too-small pie

How to allocate money, including $275,000 in United Way funds earmarked for the Malden area, could also test the unity and cooperation of the community in the aftermath of the disaster.

At the council meeting, a man who said he needed food and propane asked about where all the relief money was going and then left abruptly.

Similarly, a discussion got heated when the long-term recovery group decided to hire paid case managers.

Caseworkers will be deployed to speak with anyone who suffered a loss from the fire and determine their needs. A cost estimate, as well as a description of any request, will be forwarded to the group for a decision, with the family or individual identified by a number, not a name, so the process can be objective. The process also spares the embarrassment of having to share details about finances or health with someone who could be a friend or a relative.

A woman at the meeting suggested distributing lump sums based on losses families experienced, to save the expense of caseworkers and leave more money for fire victims.

Categories could be established to figure out what the amounts should be. Those who lost homes, for example, would get more than people who had outbuildings destroyed, she said.

That idea died over concerns lump-sum settlements might amount only to a couple thousand dollars per person and not be enough to be a significant help.

Additionally, Hokonson said, he can obtain even more money if he takes documented needs to potential donors, such as the United Methodist Organization for Disaster Relief, which just gave $5,000 for caseworkers.

The tension that is surfacing is normal and part of how people cope after a disaster, Hokonson said.

"I'm seeing the beauty in people and the potential I didn't see before," he said. "We are closer now. We understand each other. It's like we went through a war together, so we're bonded."

Williams may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2261.

This is the first installment in a three-story series that will continue in the Monday and Tuesday Tribunes.

Information about a year of free housing for Babb Road Wildfire victims is available by calling or texting Scott Hokonson, project manager of the Pine Creek Community Long-Term Recovery Group, at (509) 655-3479.

"It's a pretty cool town. But we haven't figured out a way to grow after the railroad left. Maybe this is it? It's a horrible way to do it, but you have to think positive."

Dan Harwood, a fellow councilman and volunteer firefighter, on viewing the possibilities for rebuilding Malden

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