An inmate hand crew with CalFire heads out to the Owens River fire Saturday evening. Between 6 p.m. when the blaze was reported, and 10 p.m. when the fire was contained, more than 25 acres were burned. Photo by Darcy Ellis

By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
3-24-2009

A fast multi-agency response on Saturday evening kept a hot fire on the Owens River outside of Bishop contained to 25 acres, despite high winds that had the potential to drive the blaze out of control.
According to Bishop Volunteer Fire Chief Ray Seguine, CalFire is currently investigating the cause of the fire, which “definitely wasn’t started by lightning” and could be considered suspicious.
Seguine was reluctant to speak any more on the cause, as it is under investigation. He did say that investigators are looking for any information the public may have about the cause of the blaze.
“If you saw anything suspicious, don’t hesitate to call myself or CalFire,” Seguine said.
The Bishop Volunteer Fire Department received the first reports of the fire between Line Street and Warm Springs Road shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday evening. Volunteer fire departments from Olancha and Bishop responded along with crews from CalFire and the Bureau of Land Management.
“We had quite a bit of wind,” Seguine said. “I was getting 25 mile per hour gusts with an 11 mile an hour average from the south-southwest. It was running the fire pretty hard.”

A unit from the Bishop Volunteer Fire Department works on hot spots of Saturday’s river fire. Crews from Bishop and Olancha volunteer departments, CalFire and the Bureau of Land Management responded to the 25-acre blaze, which was contained by 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Photo by Darcy Ellis

As CalFire crews focused on battling the blaze, the Bishop Volunteer Fire Department stationed itself on River Road to prevent the fire from crossing the fire break there.
“The wind didn’t shift on us, which helped us contain the fire at the road,” Seguine said. “It started in that bowl there, and it’s kind of swampy, so we can’t get people in there. We held most of it at River Road because we had a lot of resources out there, everybody worked real well together.”
The volunteer firefighters were released from the scene at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday night. One water tender and a hand crew remained at the scene until Sunday morning to be sure the fire didn’t flare up in the evening.
“We pretty much had most of it out, it wasn’t going anywhere when we left at 10:30 p.m.,” Seguine said.
Anyone with information that may be helpful to investigators is asked to call CalFire at 387-2565 or Chief Seguine at 873-5485.