Church of God Chaplains Respond to Wenatchee, Washington Fire
On Sunday, June 28 a fire started along the Wenatchee River in eastern Washington State and moved up a steep bank to the south. Over the next two hours it would spread quickly in the direction of the city of Wenatchee. With strong winds and dry fuel due to a low snow fall in the mountains the previous winter it overtook all efforts to stop it and reached the outskirts, an upscale neighborhood called Broadview. Residents were evacuated and a Red Cross evacuation center was set up at the high school in East Wenatchee across the Columbia River.
The head Chaplain for the county sheriff called Church of God Community Service Chaplain (CSC) Kyle Green of the Cashmere chapter of TIACSC to ask if they could staff chaplains at the center. A group of four arrived at the center to work alongside with Red Cross and high school staff to care for the victims. Two busloads of dementia patients from nursing homes were brought in and joined the over 30 other victims. The chaplains worked through the night comforting and assisting those staying at the center. Around 12 chaplains from the Cashmere Chapter worked in shifts until the evacuations were lifted the next night.
“During the night we could look across the Columbia and see what appeared to be a large part of the city in flames,” Chaplain Green said. “There were large buildings shooting flames high in the sky and the hills behind the city had a wall of fire moving from left to right. In the end, 30 homes were destroyed and three businesses as well.”
Chaplains assist in sifting ashes looking for a home owner’s belongings.
“The next morning the sheriff’s chaplain called again to ask if we could bring chaplains to the neighborhood with the burned homes to help those families,” Green continued. “We responded in an hour with six and began moving about to be with the people as they first saw what used to be their homes. The neighborhood was road blocked and no one else was allowed in. We worked with neighbor’s whose home survived in giving assistance, support and prayers to those less fortunate. The scene was devastating to see so many large and beautiful homes destroyed. We soon found a family already trying to dig through the ruble to find items they hoped had survived. We were able to call in some of our CERT teams and we worked along with them and found some jewelry and family treasures. The scene was one of great emotion for the family to have found things they could hold on to from the tragedy.”
Word spread through the community and many families requested the chaplains teams sift through the ash of their homes to find items of value.
“The next day I came upon a man working with his adult children to try and find items,” Green said. “He had become overwhelmed with all that he was encountering. The temperatures in the community have been over 100 degrees for more than a week and in the ash of these homes even higher. We worked to calm him and prayed with him.” Green said a team started sifting to help find a silver serving tray that was four generations old and very important for the man’s family. After two hours the team of chaplains found the tray in relatively good shape.
As of July 3, the Cashmere team was still ministering and should be working on this disaster for weeks.
“The relations we make here will go for many years,” Green said. “We are so grateful that we have been able to build good relationships with the agencies in our area to the point that they call us quickly and open the doors to allow us to serve. We had a similar but much larger tragedy last year north of us in Okanogan County and we built a reputation that has helped us gain respect of the authorities. As we work we encourage other Christians to consider becoming chaplains.”
