Cheers erupted at La Pine Middle School on Sunday evening after fire managers announced that residents displaced by a wildfire could return home.

Firefighters beat back the Park Fire, capitalizing on heavy air power and lighter-than-expected winds, managers said. About 200 people who were evacuated on Saturday were allowed to return to their homes at 6 p.m.

No buildings were destroyed in the blaze, although officials said flames got to within 40 feet of some homes.

”We are so glad to be going home,” said NaDynne Lewis, as she left the La Pine Middle School with her husband, Ron. Red Cross officials turned the school into an emergency shelter that provided everything from cots to sloppy Joe dinners to health care.

The Park Fire was first reported to be burning in La Pine State Park on Saturday afternoon, according to Central Oregon fire managers. It quickly spread, jumping the Deschutes River at one point and sending up a large black plume of smoke. Sheriff’s deputies evacuated residents around 5 p.m., leaving time to grab only vital records, family mementos and pets.

Twelve, 20-person crews, as many as four air tankers and two helicopters fought the fire according to Don Young, a district forester for the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF).

The fire burned through heavy timber and brush. Residents spent a tense day Sunday waiting for word of their homes.

But gusty afternoon winds forecast to hit the fire zone as a result of a cold front moving into the area weren’t as strong as some had feared. That helped firefighters to get the upper hand, Young said.

The proximity of the fire to homes and the availability of aircraft allowed fire managers the luxury of an aggressive, early attack, said Deschutes County Forester Joe Stutler.

When the large plume of ash drifted back to the ground on Saturday night, embers were igniting spot fires as much as 1,000 yards from the main fire, Stutler said.

”If we hadn’t had a lot of airplanes and helicopters, it would have been a different outcome,” he said.

The Park Fire burned an estimated 143 acres and was 90 percent contained as of Sunday evening, fire officials said. Investigators said they haven’t yet determined how it started.

La Pine State Park will remain closed until further notice, although campers who were evacuated from the area will be allowed to retrieve their possessions, fire officials said. A section of the Deschutes River, extending just beyond the park’s borders, remained closed Sunday evening.

Firefighters planned to continue fighting the fire despite the decision to allow residents back into their homes. People who see smoke in the area should dial 911 immediately, fire officials said.

Fighting the Park Fire will cost at least $400,000, said Young of ODF. The state will likely get stuck with most of the bill, he said.

More blazes

Two other fires occupied firefighters in other parts of Central Oregon on Sunday.

The 759 Fire in Shaniko burned a bed and breakfast, an abandoned house and several outbuildings in the town, according to fire officials at Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch. Driven by 40 mph winds, the fire was estimated at about 400 acres at 6 p.m. Sunday and still burning to the southeast.

The Shaniko Hotel was not destroyed in the blaze, fire officials said.

The fire started when a wheel came off a boat trailer, causing sparks to ignite vegetation after the trailer hit the pavement, fire managers said.

South of Redmond, the Brand Fire was 100 percent contained on Sunday, fire crews announced. The fire, which had been burning east of The Brand Restaurant, was started by sparks from a passing train, officials said.

Near La Pine, residents spent a tense day Sunday preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.

At 10:30 a.m., sprinklers watered down piles of firewood along Day Road, just east of the evacuated area. Some residents hooked up camping trailers to their trucks, as a helicopter scooping buckets of water from the Deschutes River buzzed nearby.

Stan Mowatt, 47, said he and his wife decided to evacuate their home Saturday afternoon, when the wind-stoked fire roared to life.

”All of the sudden, it kicked up with a bunch of black smoke,” said Mowatt. ”I said, ‘This is not good.’”

The couple evacuated a house they rent on Camino de Oro Avenue at about 5 p.m. They loaded up important documents, photos, the television set and the neighbor’s dog and headed east.

After a night spent in their camper in the Bi-Mart parking lot, the Mowatts spent Sunday parked in a friend’s driveway on Day Road.

Mowatt, who used to drive bulldozers on fire crews in California, said he was impressed by how fast the fire grew on Saturday afternoon.

”Those trees go up like matchsticks,” Mowatt said. ”I’ve never seen anything light up that fast in my life.”

Ron Cox, who has lived on Day Road for two years, watched neighbors leading horses and driving all-terrain vehicles out of the evacuated area on Saturday evening. Slurry bombers roared overhead and smoke billowed out over Newberry Crater to the east, he said.

Cox, who runs a nonprofit company called Life For Children out of his home, said Sunday morning that he wasn’t overly concerned with the fire. Cox’s nonprofit holds weekly garage sales to raise money for poor children in Brazil, he said.

”If the wind shifted, then we might have something, but there’s no packing up yet,” Cox said.

Evacuation efforts

A few miles south, Red Cross volunteers were busy hosting evacuees at La Pine Middle School.

Fire officials said 186 people were evacuated to the shelter as a result of the fire. Bobbie Bourne, director of emergency services for the Oregon Mountain River Chapter of the American Red Cross, said 143 ate breakfast at the shelter on Sunday morning.

Some who attended briefings at the shelter spent Saturday night elsewhere, with friends or in campers or hotels.

At noon Sunday, Bourne was preparing to keep the shelter in case the fire got larger in the afternoon. Southern Baptists from a church organization in Redmond provided a Sunday supper of sloppy Joes, and Bourne was coordinating an eight-person staff to work at the shelter on Monday if need be.

”The real concern is the heat and the weather that we’re going to get this afternoon,” Bourne said early Sunday.

People weren’t the only evacuees.

The Humane Society of Redmond helped evacuate several dogs and cats, a ferret, two iguanas, a rabbit, several gerbils and hamsters from the residential area south of the state park, said Carl Quigley, a shelter employee who was volunteering for the fire.

Nineteen animals, including several dogs and cats, as well an unknown number of horses and livestock, were evacuated from the area, Quigley said.

Tim Eiden, 50, knew it was time to leave his Twin Drive home when a description of the fire’s afternoon rise came in over a police scanner he listens to on a regular basis.

”They said it was a plume like Mount St. Helens,” Eiden said.

Thanks to the scanner, Eiden said his family was out of the house in less than half an hour.

When they left, they took documents, some bread and cheese, guns and ammunition and even blocks of ice to cool the water for their dogs.

Eiden did forget something, he remembered, as he sat Sunday on a cooler in the shade of a tree in front of the middle school.

”I forgot all my beer, it’s in the garage,” he said.

Of the dozens of nervous evacuees, perhaps nobody felt unluckier than Rockne and Carol Lechelt, formerly of the Gresham area. The couple were evacuated less than a week after they moved into their home on Sparks Drive.

”I was telling the fire chief, thanks for the welcome to La Pine!” Rockne Lechelt said.