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News brief: Happy ending for Salkum fire department call

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Twelve minutes from dispatch time to locating two missing children last night in the Salkum area.

Fire Chief Duran McDaniel today is singing the praises for one of his volunteers who spotted the girls, ages 6 and 11, in the darkness alongside Gore Road near Stowell Road.

About 10 members of the volunteer department answered the call just after 11 p.m. to assist the sheriff’s office after the youngsters vanished from a babysitters home on the 400 block of Gore Road, McDaniel said. “That’s everybody’s worst nightmare, kids missing,” he said.

Fire Lt. Tim Robinson had picked up a department command vehicle from the main station on U.S. Highway 12 and had just started up Gore Road, he said.

He happened to glance in his rear view mirror and saw from the glow of his tail lights two figures coming out from the ditch, McDaniel said. The girls must have stepped off the road when they saw his headlights, he said.

Robinson picked the children up and delivered them to sheriff’s deputies.

“His sharp eyes saved hours of work,” McDaniel said of the longtime volunteer firefighter.

McDaniel said his understanding was the youngsters decided on their own to walk home from the sitter’s place. They had already traveled two to three miles, he said, in the right direction but in the dark.