PORT ANGELES — Think the unthinkable: losing your every possession to a wildfire.
Then rethink it.
What you might not have thought of could be what wildland fire victims need most, said Kim Beus of Port Angeles, whose former home burned in the Okanogan Complex Fire.
Beus is heading a drive for donations for people in Eastern Washington who have lost homes — and clothes and shoes and tools and toothbrushes.
An employee of Hartnagel Building Supply, she’s collecting donations of cash and needed items at a drop-off point at the hardware store, 3111 E. U.S. Highway 101.
The needs include pet food, horse halters and batteries of every size — and, for people building temporary shelters, hand and power tools, nails, screws, staples and duct tape.
Cattle hungry
And hay. With 55,000 head of cattle in the Okanogan area before the fire began, surviving animals will have little to eat because the flames have consumed fields as well as forests.
Beus and her husband, Curtis, former Extension agent for Clallam County’s Washington State University, had moved to Omak four years ago.
Kim Beus returned two years ago to care for her mother. After her mother died, Kim and Curtis decided to stay here.
Escaped the flames
That meant the Beuses had mostly moved from the peeled-log home they leased — and had planned to buy — in the Haley Creek Road area before flames destroyed it Aug. 21.
The Beuses brought back their last loads of household goods two weeks ago, she said, barely avoiding disaster.
Of the 40-some houses in their neighborhood, two remain.
“On the plus side, we didn’t lose things, except for what was in the barn,” she said.
The family had fled the Carlton Complex Fire two years earlier, and, although their home escaped those flames, they’d seen the devastation.
They also saw a sometimes misguided charitable response as many people donated clothing that often wasn’t fit to wear. Five semi-trailer loads of garments had to be trucked to landfills.
‘Winter’s coming’
“The losses . . . I don’t think people realize the scale of things,” she said.
“Winter’s coming. It’s going to be cold weather there soon.”
Hartnagel has spotted a semi-trailer at the store to collect donations.
“We hopefully will be taking many trips to government-run organizations or the Okanogan Community Action Agency,” she said.
Okanogan County already is among the poorest in the state, according to Beus.
Resilient people
Her former neighbors are resilient, she said.
“They come together like at no other time,” she said. “All those things like race and class have been thrown out the window.”
Hay farmers are donating feed to livestock owners. People with trailers are helping round up panicked horses that fled the fire.
But great needs remain, even for things you never thought about.
Like a dust mask, a wash cloth or a pack of jerky.
And if you don’t realize people need toilet tissue . . .
You’d better think again.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladaily
news.com.
