The Holden Village Podcast
Holden Village is a remote wilderness community, rooted in the Lutheran tradition, that welcomes all people into the North Cascade Mountains, above Lake Chelan, Washington.
Over the course of 60 years, Holden Village has been transformed from a copper mining town to a vibrant place of education, programming, and worship.
Holden Village welcomes and embraces people of all races, ethnicities, religious backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities. Holden Village has been a Reconciling in Christ congregation since 1985.
For the sake of Justice, Holden is called to foster Diversity through deliberate invitation and welcome; deploy an ethic of Equity to confront and dismantle systemic oppression; and practice Inclusion by listening to, learning from, and being transformed by marginalized voices, in order to become, together, the community for which God longs.
The Holden Village Podcast
Remembering the 2015 Wolverine Fire: Part One - Spark and Evacuation
The summer theme for 2025 is Life Anew, recognizing all the ways fire is part of a healthy ecosystem and prepares for the future forest. June 29 was the tenth anniversary of the lightning strike that started the 2015 Wolverine Fire six miles east of the Village. Over the next eight weeks the fire would consume 65,323 acres in the Entiat, Lake Chelan and Railroad Creek watersheds. By the end of July 2015, the Village itself was under threat, and the Forest Service ordered an evacuation.
Roughly 300 people fled the Village during the Wolverine fire. Thanks to determined hotshot crews and Holden's own preventative measures, the Village was spared.
We sat down with former Holden Village directors Chuck Hoffman and Peg Carlson-Hoffman, Incident Commanders Nancy and Marc Rerucha Borges, and current Holden Village Fire Marshal Jeff Pierce to hear their memories of the 2015 Wolverine Fire.
Experience the story from the people who lived through it in part one of this three-part series.