Donations sought for victims of Cold Spring Canyon-Pearl Hill fire

OKANOGAN — Monetary donations are being accepted for victims of a wildfire that started Labor Day weekend and burned in Okanogan and Douglas counties. The fire was stopped at the Grant County-Douglas County line, and fire crews are still working to extinguish it.

Donations are being solicited to help as cleanup and rebuilding begins - a process that in the past has proven to take years.

While there have been a lot of donations of food and supplies for humans, donations are still needed for livestock. Naomie Peasley, director of the Okanogan County Fairgrounds, said ranchers lost miles of fences and a lot of the feed stored for winter.

“We are in grave need of fencing supplies and hay,” she said. “We’re trying to get (ranchers) some hay because that’s the biggest need. These animals need to be fed.”

Donations can be made at the fairgrounds, 509-422-1621.

Monetary donations are being accepted at the Community Foundation of North Central Washington through its NCW Fire Relief Fund. Executive director Beth Stipe said the minimum donation is $10, and all donations will go to help fire victims.

“We started this (fund) in 2014 with the Carlton Complex Fire,” Stipe said. The fund was expanded in 2015, with the Omak Complex Fire. Stipe said one lesson she learned was that recovering from a fire can take years.

Foundation officials are part of a coalition formed to disburse funds and coordinate relief efforts for 2014 and 2015 fire victims, and that group is still meeting, she said.

The foundation has received about $50,000 in donations to date, and its board of directors agreed Tuesday to match donations up to $50,000, she said.

The foundation will continue accepting donations for the forseeable future, because the fire victims’ losses won’t be known for a while. During the 2014 and 2015 fires, applications for assistance were still coming in six months later, Stipe said.

Donations can be mailed to 9 S. Wenatchee Ave., Wenatchee, WA, 98801. Donations also can be made at the foundation’s website, cfncw.org/ncwfirerelieffund.

The fire started near Omak on Sept. 6 and burned south, crossing the Columbia River upstream from Chief Joseph Dam. The fire traveled about 80 miles in less than 24 hours.

It has been broken into two sections for management purposes. Jeff Sevigney, public information officer for the Cold Spring Canyon Fire (the Okanogan County section) said estimates are the fire has destroyed at least 78 primary buildings, mostly homes.

The estimate for the Pearl Hill Fire (the Douglas County portion) is 26 residential or commercial structures destroyed, 23 of them houses. A significant amount of the destruction was in the vicinity of Bridgeport, said Wayne Patterson, Pearl Hill Fire public information officer.