Quickwork by crew members with Wood River Timber in Klamath Falls, Ore. helped save the Mitchell Monument in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in south central Oregon as the Bootleg fire blazed through the region on its way to burning more than 400,000 acres. The remote stone monument memorializes the only American casualties in the continental U.S. during World War II when six people were killed by a Japanese balloon bomb in May 1945. Wood River Timber was contracting with the Oregon Dept. of Forestry to strip timber and fuel from an area adjacent a forest road that runs by the monument in an effort to keep the fire from jumping the road.
The tricky maneuver required the crew to monitor weather conditions and wind movement and wait for air support to move in and take the material down surrounding the monument. The crew had thankfully moved miles away when a rare but highly dangerous pyrocumulus cloud collapse occurred near the work area, creating high winds and spraying burning embers across the landscape.
According to news reports, Wood River Timber owner Ray Driscoll has been working more than 30 years helping fight fires when needed. He gives his crew all the credit for getting the job done and putting in long grueling days while the fire was active. (It’s currently almost 100% contained.) He’s happy his people are safe and said in all his years he’s never been that close to a fire cloud column collapse.
The memorial includes a tree that still contains shrapnel from the blast when a minister and his wife took five kids from a Sunday school class on a tragic picnic in spring 1945. The wife and kids had run ahead of the minister and found the balloon and it detonated, killing the wife and children instantly. Initially located on Weyerhaeuser land, the monument was created in 1950 and is now a major attraction in the Fremont-Winema National Forest Mitchell Recreation Area north of Bly, Ore.