Longview Daily News from Longview, Washington • 9

SECTION Tuesday, July 9, 1991 The Daily News Records B2 Northwest B4 Hiker critical after fall into St. Helens crevasse pulling." When Ecker's unconscious body was pulled within arm's reach, McDowell and rescue members Jeff Palensky and Gary Kapezynski lifted him to safety. McDowell said he thinks Ecker used his last bit of strength to tie the rope around himself. It was after midnight when Ecker was rescued, and McDowell said he may have been in the crevasse in more than a foot of freezing water since 4:30 p.m. The rescue team began cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Ecker, while a MAST helicopter from Fort Lewis hovered 200 feet above them.

Members of MAST Unit 54 lowered a basket and airlifted Ecker over to more rescue members who continued CPR and transported him to a Lifeflight helicopter. Lifeflight took Ecker to Emanuel Hospital in Portland where a hypothermia team was standing by to assist. "As of 7:30 a.m., we were told that he was taken back into surgery for lung problems due to broken ribs, but that he was breathing on his own," McDowell said. But Brown missed the trail to the parking area, where there is a phone, and ended up on a road. There, he was picked up and taken to the town of Cougar, where he telephoned for help.

Tom McDowell of North Country Emergency Medical Services received the call at 8:07 p.m. and drove to Cougar, where he and Brown helicoptered to the scene. It took 20 to 25 minutes for them to locate the site, because Grossman had decided to leave the scene to find help. When they arrived, Ecker was still conscious. McDowell had two more men flown to the scene, but darkness prevented any more landings on the steep mountain slope.

McDowell said they couldn't reach Ecker, but could hear him calling out. "He kept saying, 'Help me. Get me McDowell said. The rescue team managed to lower a rope with a flashlight and told Ecker to tie the rope around himself. That's when they lost contact with Ecker.

"We couldn't hear him anymore," McDowell said, "but when we pulled the rope it felt like he managed to get it tied around him, so we started ByJeffFavre The Dally Newt A hiker remained in critical condition this morning after falling into a crevasse on Mount St. Helens Monday night that had a waterfall flowing into it. The man, fighting off hypothermia, may have used his last ounce of strength to help save his life. David Ecker, 22, of Westchester County, N.Y., was sliding down a snowy trail with friends Christopher Brown, 23, of Cresskill, N.J., and Eric Grossman, 23, of Englewood, N.J., when the trail ended at a small cliff with water running over the edge. Ecker couldn't stop his momentum and fell over the edge and into a crevasse made by the falling water.

His companions couldn't see Ecker, who was trapped in the 10-foot-long and 5-foot-wide crevasse. Brown and Grossman couldn't reach Ecker because of the water flowing into the crevasse, but made verbal contact. Grossman stayed by the crevasse, while Brown went for help. Fred Rutherford stepping down as Long Beach mayor By Marc Stiles The Daily Newi LONG BEACH Fred Rutherford, arguably the most colorful mayor in the history of Long Beach, has announced he will not seek a third term. The 82-year-old mayor, who will turn 83 this fall, said he's getting too old for the job.

Two City Council members, Ken Ramsey and Roy Starr, already have said they will run for mayor in the Sept. 17 municipal elections. A third council member, Jack Caines, said he may run. Rutherford, who said he may run for a council seat, is often credited with helping Long Beach grow up from a backwater fishing village. Seen by -many as a friend to developers, the mayor has promoted the building of parks, including the city's new boardwalk.

"I think I've brought this town up from a stalemate to one of the most progressive tourist destinations in Washington," Rutherford said this morning. He earned his reputation as a controversial leader during his first term, when he fired the city's entire police department. He survived a subsequent recall effort that never made it to the ballot, and the mayor easily won re-election four years ago when Starr challenged him. This will be Starr's third bid for mayor. He also ran against Rutherford in 1983.

A former grocery store owner, Starr has been on the council for about 30 years. He said he will have the time to devote to the office since he now works only part time as a bartender. Ramsey, a ground man for Pacific County PUD, has served on the council for eight years. He said his administration's hallmark would be that of cooperation between the council and himself. Ramsey also said as mayor he would approach all issues, including development, more conservatively than the current administration.

Caines said he has three options: run for mayor, seek re-election to the council or leave city politics. "It's probably one of the first two," he said. The filing period for the September elections is July 22-26. Death apparent suicide John Terry Wrinkle, 43, whose body was recovered from the beach near Wauna on July 5, appears to have committed suicide, according to Det. Sgt.

Levi Morgan of the Cowlitz County Sher- iiiimi juiu i 1 1 I a i 1 'fLr' i. ft Locally riff's Office. "We haven't yet closed the investigation," Morgan noted. But all the evidence gathered so far points to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, he said. This was confirmed today by Dr.

Charles Linehan, a physican at the Clatsop County Medical Examiner's Office, who examined the Hi 3i Daity New photo by Roga Wo Jim Shaw tests a piece of wood moulding at Weyerhaeuser Fire Technology Laboratory Weyco fire lab hot on trail of arson cases of the tunnel and uses calibration marks to gauge how much of the panel is consumed in 10 minutes. This "flame spread index" determines the panel's fire-resistance rating. Cherry Lee works mostly alone in her tiny combustion toxicity lab. A burning-machine sits just left of the door. Lee often hovers over a microscope just past that.

Cages, mostly empty, for mice and rats line the right-hand wall. The centerpiece of the lab is a big plexiglass chamber with little holding bins for the test animals. Each bin has an opening into the chamber for the rodent's head. Gases from burned material are collected, analyzed, and released into the chamber for the rodents to inhale. Sometimes the rodents die.

Lee takes detailed notes on the amount and type of smoke the rodent inhales. Her test results are used to determine the danger levels of smoke inhalation from the materials in an actual fire. Shaw says his goal is to make the lab the best facility it can possibly be. He has no plans to move on. "I'm happy right where I am," he says.

"I just really like what I do. I have no ambition to be a vice they write the rules for testing. "We influence codes and standards," says Shaw. "We've had extensive involvement in the standards-writing organizations that define the specific details of test methods." Shaw, 48, came to the Fire Technology Laboratory in 1977 as an organic chemist. He'd just earned his tenure as a chemistry professor at Olympic College in Bremerton when he hea rd about the opening at Weyerhaeuser.

Shaw checked out the job and decided to switch. He became lab director in 1986. The lab, situated in a greenish-gold officewarehouse complex behind Norpac, appears deceptively primitive. Floors are bare concrete. Foul burning smells fill the air in many rooms.

The testing machines are boxy and bulky like props from an old science fiction serial. A gray, metal, 25-foot tunnel for testing the surface fla mm ability of materials like paneling stands nearly 6 feet high. One end is loaded with gauges, buttons and monitors. Lab workers lay long sheets of the paneling end-to-end inside the top of the tunnel. Gas burners beneath the panel ignite its first 4 Vb feet.

An observer peers through a series of thick windows near the top Two firefighters died in attempts to stop the fires. "We spent a lot of late hours on this one," says Shaw. "Investigators didn't know what to look for" because they had never before encountered this type of fire, he says. Gasoline fires don't burn anywhere near as hot or as fast. Eventually, chemists at another lab were able put together a concoction they hoped would behave like the suspected fuel.

Shaw's people created a test that duplicated the conditions of the arson fires. The Fred Meyer tests produced a burn nearly identical to that in the arson cases. Investigators say they still don't know who started these fires, or why, although they suspect some kind of organized crime connection. But now, at least, they know how it's done. Fire investigations are one of the lab's more dramatic jobs.

Much of the lab's work is more mundane. It was originally designed to test the fire resistance of Weyerhaeuser's building materials. As the lab grew in capability, it also grew in popularity and began taking on outside jobs. "We're one of three largest fire research facilities in the country," says Shaw. Lab scientists not only run tests, By David Beard The Daily News Jim Shaw gets paid to burn things.

He recalls one of his big jobs. Shaw and his crew gather in the dark near an abandoned Fred Meyer store in Puyallup. At 4 a.m. the owner of the adjoining tavern locks up her shop and heads for home. A signal is given and one end of the store bursts into flames.

Within seven minutes, the entire store is on fire. An accelerant similar to rocket fuel is generating enough heat to melt concrete. Firefighters can only wait. Water makes the fire burn faster. Shaw directs Weyerhaeuser's Fire Technology Laboratory in Longview, where research experts helped design this set fire.

Their findings could turn the tide in a baffling seven-year-long arson-murder investigation. Various businesses across Washington in Seattle, Bell-ingham, Spokane and Yakima as well as in California, Florida and British Columbia were torched in the middle of the night. They all burned to the ground in minutes, leaving gray powder in place of concrete walls and pillars. body. In addition, Morgan pointed out, Wrinkle was unemployed and was known to be despondent at the time of his death.

Wrinkle, an electrician and a resident of Kelso for five years, had moved to Chico, in February. He went back to Washington on business, said his mother, Cleo Wrinkle, who lives in Chico. Wrinkle is survived by his daughter, Michelle, 20; a son, Matthew, 16; his mother; a grandmother, Mary Alice O'Howell; and two brothers, Mark Wrinkle of Chico and Andy Wrinkle of Corona, Calif. A memorial service will be held Thursday at the Glen Oaks Memorial Park in Chico. Annexation on agenda A proposal to annex 192 acres off Tennant Way near Gerhart Gardens Park into the city of Longview will be discussed Thursday by the Cowlitz County Boundary Review Board.

The board will review the proposed annexation, bordered by the Cowlitz River to the north and east and by Tennant Way to the south. The river makes up nearly 47 acres of the proposed annexation. If any other government agencies object to the annexation, the board can require a more in-depth review of the proposal and the boundaries. The board meets at 7:30 p.m. in the Cowlitz County Administration Building, 207 N.

Fourth Kelso. Job retraining meeting topic Job retraining for people in the forest products industry will be the topic of a town meeting in Cathlamet tonight. The meeting, which will start at 7 p.m. in the Cathlamet courthouse, is sponsored by the Employment Security Department. Forest fire under control RYDERWOOD A 20-acre forest fire near Ryderwood was under control this morning, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

Becky Escober, a dispatcher for the department in Olympia, said the fire was reported about 9 p.m. Monday on International Paper Co. property five miles west of Ryderwood. Escober said the fire never threatened any homes and no one was injured fighting the blaze. She said the cause of the fire was still under investigation this morning.

3 injured in accident A collision in Longview Monday afternoon injured three people and heavily damaged two automobiles. Released after treatment at St. John's Medical Center were Pedro Lopez-Gonzalez, 25, 404 Rosewood Kelso, and Kimberlee G. Gardner, 24, 406 Bates Road, Kelso. A passenger in the Gardner vehicle.

Brad N. Halleck, 21, 17 Pacific Place, Longview, also sustained apparently minor injuries that didn't require hospitalization. Witnesses reported Gardner was pulling out of the Fred Meyer Shopping Center's parking lot to turn east on Ocean Beach Highway about 2:39 p.m. when a westbound car driven by Lopez-Gonzalez accelerated rapidly before colliding with her car. Police issued citations charging Lopez-Gonzalez with driving while his license was suspended, negligent driving and failure to show proof of liability insurance.

'60 Minutes' segment to spotlight Weyco lab's work By David Beard The Daily Newt The Weyerhaeuser Fire Technology Laboratory's work will gain the spotlight this fall when 60 Minutes airs a story about John Henry Knapp, who is awaiting his third trial in Phoenix, in the arson murder of his two small daughters. While spokesmen for 60 Minutes would not reveal the air date, the fire lab segment will be part of a larger story on a number of arson cases that are being overturned. Knapp lived in a mobile home in Phoenix. His lawyer, Larry Hammond, also of Phoenix, says, "Evidence suggested to the jury that one gallon of Coleman-type fuel had been spread around the (girls') room. The subsequent fire was a result of the accelerant." The girls, both under 10 years old, died in the blaze.

Knapp was convicted in his second trial in 1974 and sentenced to death. But the sentence was set aside in 1987. In 1990, Knapp was recharged with the crime and returned to jail, Hammond says. For Knapp's defense, Hammond hired the Weyerhaeuser fire lab to run computerized "fire growth simulations" and a "full scale room mock-up." The lab used a Macintosh computer for the simulations. Researchers entered information about the girls' bedroom and its furnishings, and the program illustrated all the possible ways the fire could have spread within the room.

The mock-up reproduced, as exactly as possible, the conditions that existed in the room where the Knapp girls died. Carpet, wallboard, furniture, and ceiling were all reconstructed. Mock-ups are done in a room-within-a-room in the lab warehouse. Fireproof walls made of calcium flashover." Shaw explains that flashover occurs in a contained area where flames will create enough radiant heat energy to cause spontaneous combustion. The pressure from the spontaneous combustion causes the fire to burst through windows and doorways, spreading flames into other areas.

Hammond learned that "flashover can cause a fire with characteristics similar to that caused by a flammable liquid." He intends to demonstrate that the fatal fire in Phoenix could have been generated by "some innocent cause, such as children playing with matches." Similar tests, on a much smaller scale, were done by another lab at Knapp's first trial, Hammond says. They were judged scientifically inaccurate and tossed out. He says that's not likely to happen this time because Shaw's people did a "very competent, scientifically proficient job." silicate, an inorganic mineral compound, can be moved to simulate various room sizes. In the back right corner of the room, a flat, square gas burner on a stand spews flames to ignite the furnishings. Exhaust fans over the doorway draw out the smoke.

Probes in the exhaust duct provide a continuous measurement of the smoke's oxygen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide content. The probes also measure the smoke's temperature and the amount of smoke that passes by the probes at a given time interval. "That's one area of capability where we probably stand alone," says lab director Jim Shaw. "With the size fires we can produce, we can assess burn characteristcs and the growth of a fire, with and without accelerants." Hammond says that the fire tech lab succeeded in "demonstrating that fire could ensue with unbelievable rapidity, because of.