When house fires start and sometimes burn out of control, many West Jefferson County residents are on their own.
Last month, when a blaze got out of control off U.S. Highway 101, about 15 miles south of Forks in unincorporated West Jefferson County, the only emergency service personnel who arrived were Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Derek Allen and a State Patrol trooper.
An unoccupied building had been set on fire by its owner to remove the increasingly dilapidated structure, but the fire had spread to nearby telephone poles and phone lines, Allen wrote in a report.
No one was hurt.
But after Allen arrived and determined that the burning building was unoccupied, there was little for the deputy and trooper to do but watch it burn to the ground.
There was no one to call, said Jefferson County Sheriff’s Capt. Ben Stamper, who added that if the unidentified owner were charged with anything, it would be reckless burning.
About 40 miles away is the all-volunteer Fire District No. 7 in Clearwater.
“We cover about 6 to 8 miles, from Highway 101 to the forest,” said Jim Stehn, District 7 fire commissioner.
The fire department has about a half-dozen firefighters, a fire engine and two tanker trucks, which are kept in a county-owned building that also is used by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
The department has traveled as far as Kalaloch Lodge and has backed up the single fire engine that is kept at the Queets reservation but recently has not traveled beyond its service area, Stehn said.
Other than that, the closest department is in Forks, which doesn’t respond to anything south of the county line, located just south of the Bogachiel River.
The Hoh tribe owns a fire engine and other emergency vehicles to protect tribal properties and some neighboring properties, purchased with a $100,000 grant in 2008.
The tribe was awarded a $623,000 grant to create its own fire department in 2009.
The tribe is preparing a site for a fire station on former Olympic National Park lands deeded to the tribe by the U.S. Congress in 2010 as part of an attempt to move the Hoh village out of floodplains and onto safer ground.
In many parts of the rural area, state Department of Natural Resources wildland fire-fighting crews are the only protection.
The DNR crews are dedicated to protecting forestlands and typically do not respond to structure fires.
“If there is a danger of the fire spreading, they will send a crew to insure the safety of the woods,” Stamper said.
But they will not make a specific effort to save the structure where the fire started, he said.
Stamper estimated that the sheriff’s office responds to one or two structure fires in West Jefferson County every year.
While the June 30 fire did get out of control and burned some telephone poles, it was determined that it did not threaten to spread into the woods, Stamper said.
Forks Fire Department, which is in neighboring West Clallam County, is the nearest fire district to the unincorporated, mostly unserved West Jefferson County rural area.
If a fire department doesn’t reach a structure within five minutes, it is likely to be a total loss anyway, said Forks District Chief Phil Arbeiter.
It would take at least 15 minutes to get to the fire, not including the amount of time it takes for the volunteers to reach the station and get the equipment on the road.
Once on-scene, the fire crew isn’t allowed to leave the fire until it is fully extinguished, Arbeiter said.
Arbiter said that years ago, when the department had more volunteers, the Forks Fire Department did fight fires in parts of West Jefferson County.
But a reduction in volunteer firefighters and concern that the fire crews could not make it back to Forks quickly if an emergency happened there prompted the end of the policy of helping their neighbors to the south, Arbiter said.
The district voted to make the decision to stop helping their neighbors to the south a few years ago.
“I hated to do it,” Arbeiter said, noting that he had helped to protect those residents since he became chief in 1972.
Arbeiter and Stamper both said that the residents of West Jefferson have a choice — they can go without fire protection, or they can create their own fire district.
There have been several attempts to start volunteer fire departments in various areas of West Jefferson County, but the formation of a tax district to fund essential equipment and training has never been accepted by the voters, they said.
“I’m not certain there are enough people to form a fire district,” Arbeiter said.
Beaver was once in a similar situation, and voted to be annexed by the Forks Fire Department, he said.
Now there is a Forks fire substation in Beaver, and the volunteers from both communities protect 135 square miles.
The department covers Beaver, and will respond to wrecks on Highway 101 as far east as the top of the hill near Lake Crescent, but in more distant areas don’t respond to emergencies away from the highway, Arbeiter said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
