EDEN BENCH — They were given the notice to evacuate within an hour of the Elbow Creek Fire starting.

Yet Dick and Shirley Hone saw their home spared despite the blaze’s quick-burning nature when it started the afternoon of Thursday, July 15, and almost immediately started moving east.

“They saved, I think, basically every structure,” Shirley Hone told the Chieftain during an interview Wednesday, July 21.

The Hones own the last home on Eden Bench, closest to Elbow Creek, Shirley Hone said.

“I think within two hours, it was burning hard right below our house,” she said.

The couple heeded evacuation notices and were out of their home by about 6 p.m., she said. Other family members stayed overnight at the home to watch the place.

“We left the first night, and my two brothers-in-law from Enterprise and Joseph came and stayed at the house,” Hone said.

She added they brought a water truck and stayed at the house in case they could help.

They stayed in Enterprise on July 15-16, but returned home within about 36 hours of evacuating.

“We just wanted to be there. We built this house ourselves, and it’s not easy to leave a place like this,” she said.

When she spoke to the Chieftain, Hone said she hadn’t measured how close the fire came to their home, but her brothers-in-law “said it was within 500 yards of our lowest property.”

Hone had immense praise for the efforts put forth by firefighters who stopped the blaze before it reached their home.

“This state fire group did an outstanding job with this fire. It was moving very rapidly,” she said. “The organization this group has was unbelievable, both aerial and ground.”

Hone added that she and her husband never felt unsafe.

“These guys were right on top of it. What they did was totally amazing. And the ground personnel was unbelievable,” she said, adding the aerial attack was key. “Without them, I think everybody would have burned.”

Farther upriver, Gary and Pennie Rials were ready to evacuate — and were in the Level 3 parameters — but elected to wait it out.

The couple’s home along the Grande Ronde River is about 3 miles southwest of Troy and a few miles away from Wildcat Creek, the easternmost point of the fire.

“We’re 5 miles from Wildcat Creek. It was coming down our way,” Pennie Rials said. “It was getting kind of close. It turned and went the other way.”

She said the couple would have evacuated if they had seen the fire getting closer.

“If it would have come over the hill here called Peacock … if we would have seen flames, we were leaving,” she said.

Rials said Gary was keeping their property wet throughout the duration in case the fire did close in.

“We have a ranch, so my husband has been keeping the water going the whole time,” she said. “That is the only way we could have saved this place is keeping it wet.”

With the fire now largely burning in the opposite direction of the Rials’ home, the couple drove up Eden Bench to see the aftermath, and to inform residents who were not present that their homes — or, in some instances, vacation homes — had made it.

“I’ve been trying to keep people kind of alerted about what’s going on,” Rials said.

She, too, had high praise for the crews who fought the blaze.

“I couldn’t believe up on Eden Bench the job those guys have done. It’s unbelievable,” she said Wednesday. “The firemen, they are still up there, and they have done a great job.”

Both also credited Ron Kellermann, a Joseph resident who had been working in the area and who ran a dozer along Eden Bench, with helping spare homes.

“He was right on it,” Shirley Hone said.