BAKER CITY — A fire sparked by farm equipment on the hottest June day on record in Baker County raced through dry grass and sagebrush in Keating Valley, threatening several homes before crews from multiple agencies, with help from a pair of air tankers, stopped the blaze Tuesday, June 29.

“It really took off in 110-degree heat with 20-mile-an-hour winds behind it,” said Buzz Harper, chief of the Keating Rural Fire Protection District. “In that heat and wind it could have been real bad.”

The fire burned about 100 acres, Harper said. No homes were damaged.

Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash said the sheriff’s office gave evacuation notices to about 10 residents as a precaution.

Flames came within about 50 yards of one home, Harper said.

Harper said the blaze started in a field where a swather was operating. He said he suspects a disc on the swather hit a rock, causing a spark.

When he was notified about the fire, Harper said he took one engine, with a water capacity of 250 gallons, while his son, Steven, and another Keating volunteer, Brad Bottoms, headed out with a 1,000-gallon engine.

Buzz Harper said the trio, with the two engines, arrived within a few minutes and had nearly stopped the fire, at about 10 acres, when both ran out of water almost simultaneously.

“When you’re in the middle of it all (the water) goes pretty fast,” he said.

The fire, still propelled by the hot, dry wind, continued to move to the north and northwest, with flame lengths around 20 feet when the blaze hit patches of drought-desiccated sagebrush. Embers were starting spot fires 200 to 300 yards ahead of the main blaze, Harper said.

Harper said multiple fire agencies, responding through the mutual aid system, arrived soon after with a variety of equipment including engines and bulldozers.

Overhead, a pair of single-engine air tankers dropped fire retardant on the fringes of the blaze to block its spread.

“They did a great job of setting up lines,” Harper said of the aircraft.

He was he was glad to have two tankers available so quickly, considering that fires are burning elsewhere in the region, and the fire danger is high due to the record-setting heat wave, so there’s no surplus of firefighting resources.

“We were lucky to get what we got,” Harper said.

The Pine Valley and Eagle Valley departments, Baker Rural, the Lookout-Glasgow Rangeland Fire Protection Association, U.S. Forest Service, BLM and Oregon Department of Forestry each responded to assist, Harper said.

He said several ranchers also brought bulldozers to help fight the fire.

Harper said his chief concern was that the fire would push into the steeper, less-accessible ground along Goose Creek, where the sagebrush grows thick and tall.

It was a near thing.

“If it would have went another 200 to 300 yards into Goose Creek, it would be going for weeks,” Harper said.

Harper, who has lived in Keating Valley for 32 years and served as the Keating District’s chief for more than 25 years, said fire danger is the “worst I’ve ever seen it here — and this is the end of June.”

Travis Cook, who lives in the northern part of Keating Valley and owns Copper Belt Winery, was home Tuesday afternoon when he got a text message from his mother, Cathy Cook, who lives nearby, telling him about the fire.

Travis Cook said he watched the fire through binoculars and a spotting scope through the afternoon and evening.

Like Harper, Cook, who grew up in Keating Valley, was worried about the flames reaching the steep canyon of Goose Creek, where there’s an abundance of sagebrush but few roads.

Cook said his dad, Michael Cook, who is a volunteer with the Keating Rural Fire Protection District, was preparing to use his bulldozer to build a protection line around the family’s home, but crews stopped the fire before it was close enough to warrant that precaution.

Travis Cook estimated the fire was about three miles from his house.

“But with that wind, three miles is nothing,” he said.

Perry Jacobs, who also lives in Keating Valley, was in Sunnyside, Washington, near Yakima, picking up equipment when he got a phone call that a fire was burning within half a mile of his property line.

Jacobs said he sped home, arriving in time to help fight the fire.

He said he was relieved that the fire didn’t spread farther.

“There was potential that the wind would’ve got it about right,” he said.

Joanna Mann of the Baker City Herald contributed to this story.

“If it would have went another 200 to 300 yards into Goose Creek, it would be going for weeks.”

— Buzz Harper, chief, Keating Rural Fire Protection District