ELK, Wash. — August 18 marks the one-year anniversary of the devastating Oregon and Gray Road Fires that tore through Elk and Medical Lake in 2023.
The Gray Road Fire sparked near Medical Lake and was caused by an arching wire connector on a power light along the Gray Road.
The sparks caused flames in nearby grass, which led to the spread of the fire.
The Oregon Road Fire near Elk was human caused through spontaneous combustion. Like the Gray Road Fire, the fire burned quickly on dry fuels, aided by high winds.
Combined, the fires torched over 22,000 acres, destroyed 366 homes and took the lives of two community members.
Today, Debra Seibt, 72, and her sister, Karin Haworth, are focused on continuing to rebuild their lives after loosing everything in the Oregon Road Fire.
Seibt and Haworth now live in temporary homes on the land where their houses stood for 50 years before the fire.
“The original emotion was like… what the heck? How can this happen? I mean, this isn’t real. I’m just going to go and evacuate and then I will be back,” said Seibt.
Both Seibt and Haworth lost their homes and almost everything inside of them in the fire.
“It’s one thing to lose a structure, your house. I had a big house here. But it’s another thing to lose everything that’s inside of it,” said Haworth.
Since the fires, Haworth and Seibt have had to rebuild their lives and learn to cope with the loss.
“From the very beginning, I smiled and laughed, so I figured that was important, to keep the smile within,” said Seibt.
She is working on growing sunflowers near her current temporary home.
“It’s very easy to feel sad and miss the old things, but at the same time, I have to figure, well, at least I finally got a new spatula,” said Seibt.
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