WHITE SWAN, Wash.- Deanna Williams was driving home from western Washington when she saw the smoke coming from the Slide Ranch Fire as she neared Selah.
“We sat at my niece’s house,” says Willams. “I was like ‘they put fire retardant on. House is going to be okay.'”
The home that her dad bought and built in 1977 was in the Level 3 (Go Now) boundaries, and Williams took her family to the American Red Cross shelter set up at Harrah Middle School.
There, she was confident the evacuations were a formality. That her home was safe.
Later that evening, her and her daughter went back to the house to see how close the fire had reached.
“[My daughter] goes, ‘That’s gone, Mom,'” recalls the White Swan Resident. “I was like ‘No, it’s not. You can’t see the house for here because that big bush was still there.’ She goes ‘It’s gone.”
Her home with everything she owned was caught in the fire and left in ash.
Williams and all evacuees left the fire uninjured, and now they begin the road to recovery together.
“I call them neighbors, even though they’re two or three miles from us,” says Williams. “We’re all praying together. Our neighbors lost their home so I’m feeling the same way they do because we all know each other in White Swan.”
In less than 24 hours from the evacuation notices, three different locations have opened their doors for affected homes.
A shelter and donation center has been set up at the White Swan Community Center, White Swan Longhouse and Harrah Elementary.
“They can’t even understand the gratefulness I’m feeling,” says Williams. “Even just a small amount of clothes or gas money because I was on E last night.”
With White Swan and the fire located on Yakama Nation land, tribal resources are being used in the recovery process. As an enrolled member, the loss of her heritage stings extra for Williams.
“My moccasins and high tops, my very first ones are gone,” says Williams. ‘Ribbon skirts, they’re gone. Traditional drums that we use, my brother’s drums, all gone.”
Stil grateful to have everyone away from the fire and safe, she still has to start from scratch with her life, including her school laptop and books as she works for an accounting degree.
“I’m just in shock,” says Williams. “Even though our home is lost, we’re all safe. Everybody says, ‘Oh, it’s just material things. Your life is saved, but it still hurts, it’s still a loss.”
She says in the short term, Legends Casino has provided her a room while she is still working on a long-term plan.
Williams says the tribal resources and support being shown is keeping her spirits high.
“I’m grateful for our tribe, my Yakama Nation,” says Williams recalling an interaction with a tribal leader at the Red Cross shelter. “I just saw one of our council members. He goes, ‘White Swan is my community, it’s my family.’ And it really hit what he said because he cared about us.”
The Red Cross shelter is open at Harrah Elementary, and evacuees are asked to bring their prescription medicine, extra clothing, important documents and comfort items if there is time to gather it before evacuating.
