Janis and I are in the middle of packing all of our belongings in preparation for becoming full-time RV’ers. We will work helibases in the summer and travel to warm climes in the winter. Packing all your stuff invokes floods of memories, which are triggered by the keepsakes of thirty years. One drawer in the table by my recliner yielded a gift certificate to ride the skunk railroad between Willits and Fort Bragg.
A young couple that grew up with our sons now lives along the Skunk line. They were visiting on Christmas Eve a couple of years ago and the conversation got around to our experiences involving the Skunk Train. Janis grew up in Fort Bragg and her Grandfather had worked on the Skunk Railroad for fifty years retiring as a Conductor. I reluctantly talked about several memorable experiences fighting fire along the railroad. What amazed the kids was obviously not my stories but the fact that Janis had never ridden the Skunk and I had only ridden speeders while going to or from fires along the tracks. They gave us the certificate with the hope that we would spend a nice peaceful day riding the Skunk through the redwoods. Of course we misplaced the gift certificate and haven’t used it yet.
I did mention the Skunk Railroad and memorable experiences, hang on while I remember a few of them.
The first occurred in early August 1967. I was a brand new firefighter stationed at Howard Forest, Headquarters for the Mendocino Ranger Unit of the then California Division of Forestry. I was seventeen years old, just graduated from high school and had only been to a few small fires. Several lookouts reported a rapidly building smoke near the Skunk railroad tracks about ten miles west of Willits. The Skunk line is located in a very isolated river canyon between Willits and Fort Bragg. There are very few roads in the area and those usually dead-end at isolated spots on the line. Howard Forest was the closest station and I was on the first engine to arrive, two hours and thirty minutes later.
A timber fire! The fire had come from the steam locomotive then in use on the Skunk Line and was running to the north. Steep canyon, heavy Redwoods, the radio screaming non-stop, I heard an estimate of fifty acres of timber and slash. Six logging company cats were racing around tearing the hell out of the hillside. Air tankers were roaring down the canyon. The situation was very frightening and appeared to this rookie to be totally out of control. Two more engines arrived and a plan created, to this day I have no idea what the plan was but we were put to work so I know there must have been one!
The third engine was from Laytonville with Fire Captain “Grubby” Gene Hill and one firefighter. Part of the plan was to sacrifice me, the rookie, to Grubby so that the three of us could cut hand line up the right flank. This was the same flank that the logging cats couldn’t handle! We didn’t even have a chain saw, now I am not a brain surgeon but it was obvious to the rookie that our assignment was suicide! I soon observed two more things - Grubby was appropriately named and that he was either in poor health or completely out of shape. As we cut line up the right flank Grubby would pause every few feet and gasp for breath. I knew that he was going to die and leave me on that hillside.
We cut line for about an hour before Grubby noticed that the fire had cut across the slope under us and was now spreading rapidly uphill. We were cut off and going to be overrun! This was 1967, we didn’t have nomex, fire shelters, gloves, hoods, hand held radios and most importantly I had received no training. No one knew where we were or that we were in trouble. I was going to die on my first timber fire. The gravity of the situation transformed Gene, he yelled out to follow and lead us to a small spring. He threw his helmet on the ground and striped his shirt off; I thought that he had lost his mind! He soaked his shirt in the small pool, poured a helmet full of water over his head, put his helmet back on and draped the shirt over his head. We did the same and ran down through the fire back to the Skunk Line. Experience is one hell of an instructor, if you survive the lesson.
I promoted to Fire Captain at Howard Forest in the spring of 1976. That winter I had another interesting call on the Skunk Line. Willits is located on the edge of the Redwood Region and receives its share of rain, 60 to 100 inches a year. The rain can come down in torrents; this Sunday was one of those days. After fire season I was off on the weekends and we were living in a residence at the station. The local fire department dispatchers knew that I was living at the station and would call if they needed help. I received the call late in the morning.
The Willits City Fire Dispatcher told me that the morning freight train found one of the summer cabins along the line burned to the ground. The cabin was over a hundred years old, accessible only by the Skunk Line, and owned by an older woman who was well known and well liked by the Skunk personnel. They called her and she called the Fire Department to ask that the fire be investigated. The family hadn’t been to the cabin for several months and no utilities were on, she was very upset and wanted someone to at least look at the cause of the fire. The cabin was out of the Department’s jurisdiction and a call to the Sheriff’s department also couldn’t produce a response. The dispatcher felt sorry for her and called me to see if CDF would go take a look.
The dispatcher succeeded in making me feel bad also. Someone should care enough to at least go look. I tried calling a boss for approval and couldn’t find one. Our dispatch was closed for the winter. I phoned Jim Robertson, another CDF’er, and he volunteered to go with me. The dispatcher arranged for a speeder to meet us at the Safeway store in Willits, this would happen again if you read on. The ride out took about an hour. Speeders are loud and rough and the rain was coming down in buckets, the overcast was so low that the sky was almost dark. A very gloomy and foreboding setting.
The remains of the cabin lay one hundred feet below the tracks in a stand of old growth redwoods. The speeder operator told us to be back at the tracks in one hour or enjoy the walk back! As Jim and I approached the front step we agreed to enter and turn in opposite directions and quickly survey the scene. Jim turned left and almost immediately encountered an object covered in insulation lying in the ashes. He was sure that the object was a body and called me over. We both knew that preservation of the scene would be very important if it indeed was a body. We very carefully lifted the edges of insulation; the object was indeed a body! The problem was, what species. Was it human or an animal of some kind? The body was missing its head and limbs. I know this may sound weird but we didn’t want to start a major investigation over the body of a deer or a sheep.
We very carefully lifted the edges and found the stub of a bone at all four corners of the torso. The torso was flat, animal torsos are deep and narrow, we were sure that the body was human. What now! The first decision was to stop, preserve the area and go get the Sheriff’s department. Jim volunteered to stay and I rode the speeder back to town. On the ride in I realized that leaving Jim at the scene alone was a mistake, the body had to be there as a result of foul play! Jim later told me that he came to the same conclusion just as we went out of sight. With no radio and darkness settling in, he was very concerned to say the least. He decided to look around the outside of the foundation and then hide in the redwood grove. He found several rifles lying in the grass and very quickly melded into the grove.
I called Willits Fire Dispatch from Safeway and requested S.O. assistance for a possible homicide. About an hour later Deputy George Dudley arrived. George was a legend in the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department, tough, very capable, a lone wolf. He was not happy to be out on a Sunday in a down pour on a wild goose chase with a couple of stupid firefighters! He knew that we were over reacting. When we arrived he proceeded to the body and after a quick check proceeded to rip us for the morons that we were. Any fool could see that it was the carcass of a deer. Feeling very foolish, we loaded up on the speeder and returned to Willits.
That night George had second thoughts about the species of the body. He called the local California Arson and Bomb expert, the Willits City Fire Chief, and a California Fish and Game Warden to ride back to the scene. The next day the speeder dropped the group off, with a one-hour return arranged. The intrepid group walked down to the fire scene and a lengthy argument ensued. Without exposing the body, they cut several small hunks of meat off of one corner. The first was placed in an evidence bag and the others passed around for each individual to smell and taste. None got up the courage to actually taste the specimens. The Game Warden was harassed into almost making a taste test, as the meat passed his lips he chickened out. The group returned to Willits and mailed the sample to a lab.
That night the entire group realized that their trip to the scene had not resolved any issues; arrangements were made to return in the morning. After another speeder ride the group quickly walked to the body, turned it over and were greeted by the torso of an adult male HUMAN BEING. The victim’s genitals were exposed; they obviously were facing a very weird homicide! The game Warden began to dry heave, which the others soon found to be very amusing.
The area around the body was dug up and brought to the Willits Fire House. We were asked to help sift through the debris with the objective of finding teeth and other evidence. After hours of sifting, Ken Schleintz (one of our SHMS owners) finally found a tooth. With a tumultuous yelp, Ken proudly showed off his find. After an examination of the tooth Ken turned to place it on a small dish containing all the other teeth and evidence. He knocked the dish into the air and it landed in the previously sifted debris container! The State Arson Investigator who he was working with sat quietly staring at the debris bin. A frantic search secured all the teeth and other evidence.
The body was identified by dental records to be that of one of four gay men from San Francisco wanted for a violent crime spree in the city. The murder was never solved.
Bare with me for one more story about my adventures with the Skunk. I think you will find it to be fairly unusual. A call from a repair speeder came into the Fort Bragg Office; a trestle over the Noyo River was on fire with spread to the wildland! Both Howard Forest engines and our BC Walt Williams responded to the Safeway parking lot in Willits. Deja Vu! We loaded hose, portable pumps, radios, first aid kits, ropes, anything we could grab and threw it all on the speeder’s trailer. The group loaded onto the speeder and consisted of the speeder driver, Walt, LT FAE Ethan Foote (now a CDF BC in Lake/Napa) four Firefighters and myself.
The sun sank into the west as we left Willits. By the time we got into the river canyon and the Redwoods it was pitch dark. There was no moon and the only light was straight ahead in the cone of the speeder’s headlights. This speeder had eight seats with the operator facing forward on the front left. The seven passengers all faced outward, to see anything you had to duck down and twist towards the front. I wound up in the right front seat; I could talk to the driver by yelling over the engine noise.
After an hour of jarring along at max speed we saw the glow from the fire. As we got closer the tracks descended towards the river channel. About a mile from the fire I noticed the driver start to retard the throttle and then apply the brakes. The driver had a frantic look on his face and his motions become very animated. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he could not slow down. He started down shifting and finally put the speeder in reverse! We continued to speed up! The driver yelled that we might have to jump! I laughed and he looked at me with an expression that soon stopped all merriment.
We rounded a final turn and were greeted by a very frightening sight. A short distance ahead was a trestle over the river followed by an island and then the burning trestle. The rocky river bottom was twenty feet below in the pitch black. As we crossed the first trestle the driver yelled to get ready to jump. When the speeder left the first trestle and passed onto the island the driver jumped. The rest of us got the message and started jumping. Somehow I landed on my feet. I turned towards the speeder and saw the driver fall and disappear. Walt was spinning along side the trailer trying to stay on his feet. The speeder and trailer continued out over the abyss.
The burning trestle provided enough light to gather everyone up and check for injuries. Bumps and bruises, even the driver was uninjured! We now realized that all of our equipment, including flashlights and radios, was on the trailer. The eastern side of the trestle was completely burned away! Fortunately the tracks had warped towards one another and had stopped the speeder, which was hanging twenty feet above the river. The driver formed a human chain and inched his way out on the tracks until he could grab the tailgate of the trailer. He held on and we inched him and the cars back onto the island.
We were still collecting our wits when a loud “lookout” blasted out of the dark. Around the turn came a second speeder pulling a trailer with a 300-gallon water tank and pump. The driver yelled that he couldn’t stop. Again, it looked like all the cars and equipment were going to windup in the river! Our driver jumped up and ran into the path of the second speeder. He hit the front of the speeder like an NFL linebacker! Fearing that he was going to be killed we all piled on and succeeded in stopping the second rig just before it reached the first trailer. This time we quickly unloaded all the gear then sat down to get past the shakes.
Once our heart rates got back to near normal we went after the fire. Portable pumps were placed in the river and the west half of the bridge was pumped out and two acres of heavy redwood slash contained by sunrise. We were relieved in late morning and rode the speeder back to Willits.
It was later determined that a railroad employee who was fired the morning of the fire had torched the trestle and then greased the tracks. He was never apprehended.
Now you understand why I never rode the Skunk Train!