Sierra Club !!
I have it on my cube at work just to piss off the SC member that sits across from me.
Posted on 07/19/2002 12:20:25 PM PDT by Grampa Dave
Officials say large fires may merge
By
7/19/02 10:34 AM
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Two of the largest wildfires in southern Oregon had nearly merged Friday as the total acreage burned since lightning strikes touched off blazes around the state last weekend reached 191,000 acres.
The Tool Box Complex and the Winter Complex were being closely monitored as crews were trying to stop flames from crossing Oregon Highway 31 and heading east into the high desert.
The Toolbox Fire had burned 44,300 acres by Thursday night near the town of Paisley north of Klamath Falls.
The blaze had spread to within half a mile of the 29,300 acre Winter Fire, said David Widmark of the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland.
Fire crews went door-to-door to the 30 homes in the Ana Reservoir neighborhood Wednesday evening to alert Paisley-area residents to the danger and recommend they prepare for evacuation, said Tim Birr, a Portland metro area firefighter serving as part of the state fire marshal's wildfire management task force.
"Four people went to a Red Cross shelter we set up in Christmas Valley but the vast majority of residents remained at home," Birr said.
Across the southern and northeastern areas of the state, other pockets of rural homes and some ranches continued to be threatened by wildfires that have burned across sections of remote desert and rugged mountain forest.
Officials at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, said Oregon had become the nation's top fire-fighting priority as the wildfire season got one of its earliest starts during a month when the fire danger typically is much lower.
"In my 35 years in the Forest Service, this is the most activity I've ever seen," Widmark added.
Firefighters on Friday will have to work without the aid of air tankers and smokejumpers, which will be grounded for 24 hours because of Thursday's air tanker crash at a wildfire in northern Colorado, Widmark said.
Eleven air tankers have been rotating among the top priority fires in Oregon.
But more manpower is on the way: an Army battalion, the Oregon National Guard and prison inmate crews have been called to join firefighters from state and federal agencies, along with private contractors, as managers shifted resources around the West to take on the worst blazes of early summer.
Ten Oregon crews fighting fires in other Western states are expected home by the weekend to join firefighters arriving from eight other states, including 650 Army soldiers from a base in Kansas due by the end of the month.
Six miles north of Paisley, Summer Lake Hot Springs managers Diana Hash and her husband remained at the hot spring and RV resort even as flames from the Winter fire surged across the low hills and desert two miles away.
"The firefighters have done an amazing job. For the last four days, it has sounded like a war zone with the double prop helicopters," Hash said.
Hash said every evening they have been able to sit on their back porch at night and watch the flames devour the sagebrush, juniper and ponderosa pine.
"We look through a night vision scope and the flames are just everywhere. Every now and then you see huge fires shoot up in the air, and that is when trees are going up," Hash said.
Mornings have been the worst, she added.
"When you get up it smells like you have been standing around a campfire for a week. The air is filled with smoke. Our eyes have been burning, and we have scratchy throats."
That's what I thought odd about the article...I've heard several times that the fires are believed to be "manmade".
I'm praying for you AuntB...praying for ALL of you.
I gotta go take a walk. Living in So. Oregon in the past dozen years has not been unlike a country being invaded, overrun and then burned to the ground. What really amazes me is that most folks don't even realize they're living in a war zone. It's just happened slower than most "ethnic cleansing"....... kind of like the frog and the slowly-boiling pot of water. I've been screaming for 10 years, WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME! It's real damn close to running out for most of us around here. I'm lucky, I'll find a way to survive...I always have, but many are not that fortunate. Jackson and Josephine county have the highest unemployment rate in the nation. They call Oregon "progressive". NO COMMENT. No, there will be no telethons for the people here who are losing everything. There will be no Enron head to blame and the enviro's dream has come true and they KEPT warning us....that the fish would die.......and ALL the wildlife in those charred forests, you freaks, I hope you're happy. The new spin, of course. is that logging has caused all these fires and that if old growth were in ALL forests, they wouldn't burn. DON'T believe it or I'll find you and slap ya.
I'm outta here, good people. Thanks for being here.
Regards, B.
I have it on my cube at work just to piss off the SC member that sits across from me.
I post the geomap, and it is fine. A few minutes later they post an update and drop the link that I posted.
Try going directly to the GeoMap site, (GeoMap Link) and when you are there. You can go to the current fires and find the current GeoMap in the Current Wildfire Section.
WaterDragon, this shows the arrogance and hatred of rural Americans by this enviral watermelon POS congress it from Washington: (Arrogant enviral POS Congressit wants more road closures in midst of the West burning up)
Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Washington, announced plans to enforce President Clinton’s flawed roadless rule – which is in federal litigation – through an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill. The amendment would have prohibited federal funding for forest management activity in the 57 million acres of federal forestland that President Clinton proclaimed as roadless in a hasty administrative order in the waning days of his presidency.
The amendment would have prohibited several fire prevention activities, including the use of backfires, which has been successful in saving western towns threatened by looming fire this season. The U.S. Forest Service has reported that more than a third of the land in the roadless area -- 22 million acres – is at moderate to high risk for forest fire during one of the most devastating wildfire seasons in recent memory.
This enviral POS should be arrested and sent out of our country for daring to endanger millions of innocent Americas. He makes OBL and his al Qaeda thugs/terrorists look like pikers.
Arrest this Enviral POS and send him to Gitmo for the safety of rural Americans. He is a waste of air and space.
DUMP THE DEMOCRATS!
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