Fires ruin summer at Tamarack

First it was the Link Fire in early July that closed them down for two weeks and now the Booth Fire has closed Camp Tamarack for the balance of the summer season.

Marc Prigohzy, executive director of camp operations and vice president of the holding company that owns the land and facilities, said that the 70-year-old camping operation has canceled all plans for the balance of the summer and is on hold as to what they will do this fall.

"We got the word from Search and Rescue late the afternoon the Booth Fire broke out Tuesday, (August 19) and immediately got the kids out in our 15-passenger camp vans and private cars. We had 47 campers at the time," Prigohzy said.

Once the children were safely transported to the Red Cross Shelter at the Sisters Elementary School, the camp staff had to round up their 33 horses and evacuate them.

"That was a real problem," he said. "Many of our horses had broken from the corral and were running loose with the flames visible and the smoke very heavy. They were in a panic."

With the help of some of the senior counselors and Tony Hannan of the Lawrence farm in Terrebonne, the staff rode the horses down a back road --the Suttle Lake Road was closed by the fire -- to the Log Scaling Station just off Highway 20 where they brought in a large horse trailer and drove the horses to the farm.

Hannan then made numerous round-trips to Terrebonne getting the 33 horses safely out.

"Rounding them up took some doing and then riding them down that smoke-filled dirt road in the dark was very difficult," Prigohzy said. "We had to trail them pony fashion, that is one tied behind the other as we didn't have enough riders to take them one at a time."

Three horses broke from the gang line and had to be captured and brought down separately.

All children, staff and horses were safely evacuated. Now the camp operators are left to survey the future.

"Right now," Prigohzy said, "everything here is on hold. We lost a tremendous amount of money canceling out two weeks early in July during the Link Fire, and now we've lost a month or more during this (the Booth) fire. We canceled our Family Camp last weekend (August 29-September 1)."

The Link Fire burned within 200 yards of Dark Lake, one side of which is occupied by Camp Tamarack. The other side is kept as untrammeled forest for public use and their horseback riding trails.

Prigohzy reported that their insurance covered only three weeks in case of an emergency or disaster.

"We just don't know what we'll do," he said.

Their long-range plans, as outlined last spring (see The Nugget, July 2), called for establishing a nonprofit corporation to provide 'camperships' for those who cannot afford the $700 to $800 10-day fee.

They also were considering opening the camp on a year-round basis for family groups and retreats for school, church and other organizations.

The fires have placed all that in jeopardy -- both immediately and long-term.

"Not only have we lost a considerable amount of money," Prigohzy said, "but we have lost much of our native beauty.

"All our buildings were saved and the trees around our camp itself, but our forest, especially across the lake, is blackened. It will take time for that to grow out again."