Sisters/Camp Sherman RFPD firefighters were mopping up after their third house fire in a week on Monday, June 3. The home of Bill and Mickey Duehren on Camp Polk Road was totally destroyed.

Unlike the fire on May 1 (see story on page 1), the Duehrens escaped the flames without injury. A few items from the back of the house were saved. (The second fire on Saturday, June 1, was an intentionally set "burn-to-learn" on Pine Street to remove a home near the site of a new subdivison.)

Bill Duehren believes the fire started in a box of sawdust in his shop. He said he had been working all day Sunday on a project which included cutting cedar, which smoldered under the saw. The sawdust was blown by the equipment into a cardboard box under the work bench, according to Duehren.

Sisters/Camp Sherman RFPD Chief Don Mouser said burn patterns in the shop and garage indicated the blaze started in the sawdust then raced up a wall and into the home, fed by air streaming in through an open door.

Mickey woke up and called 911. According to the RFPD, the dispatch call came in at 1:24 a.m. The first firefighter was on the scene by 1:34 a.m.

More than 30 firefighters from Sisters and the Cloverdale RFPD responded, along with as many as 10 firefighting vehicles including engines, water tenders, an ambulance and a rescue unit to provide lights.

Firefighters were still working on the roof, carrying out salvageable items and putting away fire hose at 9 a.m.