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Sisters, Oregon
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The contents of the on-line edition of The Nugget represent a selection among the stories that appear in the weekly print edition.

New Incident Commander checks in
By Tom Chace

Incident Commander Kim Martin. photo by Tom Chace

Kim Martin of Utah has assumed duties as the Incident Commander on the Booth and Bear Butte wildfires.

Martin replaces Bob Anderson, incident commander of the Pacific Northwest Incident Management Team #3. Anderson led more 2,000 firefighters in battle against the B & B Complex fires the past three weeks, since the fires first broke out on Tuesday, August 19.

Anderson's team is rotating out under strict Forest Service guidelines for service stints on fires.

It was Anderson who, on August 22, four days after the fires started, predicted "that these fires (Booth and Bear Butte) could join together and we could have a 150,000-acre conflagration."

He also suggested that this massive burn would not be put out until there is a substantial snowfall.

With 27 years in forestry, Martin comes from Provo where he is attached to one of six national forests in Utah.

"I'm going up in a helicopter this afternoon to get a first hand eye view of where we are and what is going on," Martin said after the Saturday, September 6, community meeting at the Episcopal Church Red Cross Shelter.

Martin is a civil engineer. He will maintain the fire command post headquarters, for the time being, at the Sisters Rodeo Grounds, "where we have all our communications and staffing already set up," he said.

This is his second year working as an incident commander.

Anderson received a prolonged, standing ovation on Saturday for the work he and his crew have done in protecting property and communicating with the local residents through meetings such as the one held at the church now being used by the American Red Cross as an evacuation shelter.

The recently opened Community Hall at the church became the local American Red Cross Shelter on Thursday, September 5, as Camp Sherman residents were evacuated for the second time in the face of the advancing B&B Fire.

It also served as an open house for breakfast, lunch and dinner for those forced to evacuate their homes.

The church opened its facilities without charge to those displaced. The nearly new kitchen was in active use preparing lunch for those who attended the meeting.

Volunteers from the church worked side-by-side with Red Cross volunteers to help those in need.

Members of the church included Jan Baldwin, who taught others from the congregation how to operate the many new appliances in the up-to-date kitchen facility. A trained church member will be on hand for each use of the facility by a community organization.

Meredith McKittrick, Mimi Miller and Barbara Ehman also helped out in the kitchen.

The Red Cross provided all the food. The church provided the space and the facilities both for eating and for sleeping. The Episcopal Church women did all the cooking.

Those volunteering started work at 6 a.m.

Originally the shelter was at the Sisters Elementary School, but had to move from there as the school had to prepare for the return of children to school on Monday, September 15.

The shelter then moved temporarily to Sisters Christian Church on Main Avenue and then to Sisters Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration.

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