When you have heaps of coffee supplies just 10 miles west of an explosive wildfire, you can dump them and evacuate — or stay and serve hundreds of firefighters.
Espresso Chalet owners Mark and Sandy Klein chose the latter. They’d prepped for a busy weekend at Espresso Chalet when the Bolt Creek Fire erupted Sept. 10. It was closest they’d come to a wildfire since opening their Gold Bar coffee stand 31 years ago.
As plooms of inescapable smoke settled over them, the couple suddenly stood at the edge of an evacuation zone, sandwiched between U.S. 2 road closures from Gold Bar to Skykomish.
“There’s nothing quite like being in the crosshairs of an explosive wildfire,” Mark wrote on Espresso Chalet’s Facebook page Sept. 13.