Here is this morning's fire map:
Posted on 07/23/2002 7:41:41 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
National Guard troops mop up Winter Fire to free experienced crews
By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press
PAISLEY, Ore. (AP) -- Their cots lined up 12 inches apart, and olive drab tents tautly pitched in a grassy field, National Guard troops tossed footballs, listened to rock and roll and called home on cell phones as they waited to join the battle against forest fires burning across Oregon.
Fresh from training after being called up by Gov. John Kitzhaber, 250 members of the 82nd Armored Cavalry out of Redmond were scheduled to begin mopping up hot spots and smoking stumps in the burned-over fields surrounding homes in the narrow band of flat ground between Winter Ridge and Summer Lake in south central Oregon.
This is the third straight summer members of the 82nd have been called to fire duty, but it is never easy to leave behind family and jobs, said Cpl. Chris Gentemann, 26, of Salem, a machinist.
"The harder we work, the faster we get out of here," said Gentemann, who was eager to see his wife, Christie, and 7-year-old daughter Dallas again soon. "I talk to my wife almost every day. I don't care about the roaming charges."
A pay raise this year bringing guardsmen up to $161 a day while fighting fire makes it easier to leave jobs behind, said Sgt. Duncan MacLean, 37, a Portland welder.
The guardsmen rolled into town on buses Monday as Kitzhaber addressed fire bosses and local citizens at Paisley High School, which is home to the 933 firefighters battling the 32,000-acre Winter Fire. Along with the nearby Tool Box and Silver fires, the complex has burned 94,000 acres of Fremont National Forest, ranchland and U.S. Timberlands stands.
In all 18 fires were actively burning in Oregon covering more than 200,000 acres. All but one were east of the Cascades.
"This is as much a war as the war we are fighting in Afghanistan,' Kitzhaber said Monday after an aerial tour of the Winter Fire and another in Southwestern Oregon, the Squires Peak Fire near the community of Ruch. "Congress has got to put in a permanent appropriation to keep resources coming" for programs to thin national forests to reduce fire danger.
U.S. Forest Service spokesman Rex Holloway said the $321 million Congress appropriated for firefighting nationwide this year has all been spent, and the total bill could reach $1 billion. To make up the shortfall, $60 million in money budgeted for thinning national forests to make them less vulnerable to fire may be diverted to firefighting.
After Kitzhaber left, the fire on the southwest flank took off on a rampage through thousands of acres of beetle-killed timber on the Fremont National Forest, headed toward 30-year-old tree plantations on U.S. Timberlands property, said Incident Commander Jim Mair.
Mair pulled firefighters off the sector for safety, and pushed the estimated Thursday containment date of the Winter fire back indefinitely.
"It's just a tornado moving west," Mair said. "You don't even have to get a wind on it. It just gets up. It's like setting your Christmas tree out with the red needles on it. Cat lines don't mean a thing. The flames just blow across."
In Paisley, Kitzhaber met privately with horse rancher Dan Napier, who lost a hay barn, shop and chicken coop to the flames. Napier believes precious time was lost in launching the firefighting effort as the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon Department of Forestry argued over who should take responsibility.
Deputy Incident Commander Danny Benson said he knew of no such delays, adding that the Forest Service and Department of Forestry in the Lakeview region enjoy a good working relationship
Here is this morning's fire map:
Oregon National Guard troops mop up Winter FireToo bad they haven't mopped up the Eugene anarchists and eco-terrorists.
Too bad they haven't mopped up the Eugene anarchists and eco-terrorists.
Actually they should start in Portland and go down I5 to Ashland and mop up the enviral fascists from the Columbia River to the Kali/Oregon border. Then they should visit any town/city with an university/college and mop up the Watermelons posing as Professors.
From KGW.com: Winter Fire Becomes 'a Tornado' 07/23/2002, By JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press Writer
After Governor John Kitzhaber toured fires in southern and south-central Oregon yesterday, the southwest flank of the Winter fire near Paisley took off on a rampage through thousands of acres of beetle-killed timber on the Fremont National Forest. It's headed toward 30-year-old tree plantations on U.S. Timberlands property.
Incident Commander Jim Mair pulled firefighters off that sector for safety, and pushed the estimated containment date of the Winter fire -- which had been listed as Thursday -- back indefinitely. He describes the fire as "a tornado moving west."
Pray that those guardsmen have not been placed in harm's way. This does not sound like any mopup fire to me!
Crews Pulled off Biscuit Fire 07/23/2002 Associated Press
O'BRIEN, Ore. -- Firefighters have been called off a fire in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area because it's too dangerous, Forest Service spokeswoman Lori Cook said.
"We will continue to monitor those fires from the air until we are sure they (firefighters) have a safety zone," she said, referring to an area where they can retreat in the event the fire flares up. "Our No. 1 priority is firefighter and public safety," she added. "We won't put the firefighters back out there until we feel comfortable they are safe." The 1,400-acre Biscuit Fire is burning in steep, rocky terrain. The nearly roadless area is filled with pockets of explosive brushy vegetation. No structures are threatened. ------------------------------------------------------------
The Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area is the crown jewel of the Druid Cathedrals in Oregon. It was the first to become a no road area. Any roads into this Area were closed off during the Clintoon Legacy years.
The smoke from this fire will effect the people living in Grants Pass and Medford until nature puts it out. That could be late October or November when the fall/winter rains come on.
So Andy Kerr are you and the other eco fascists happy with this turn of events. Your roadless agenda may result in the destruction of this beautiful area for 70 to hundreds of years!
Last but not least, if this Biscuit Fire burns a lot of acreage along the Illinois River, those ashes will turn to lye in that River with the fall winter rains. That could kill every so called endangered Illinois River Steelhead that these eco terrorists have used to try and stop all steelhead fishing downstream of where the Illinois River runs into the Rogue River. Just more of their rural cleansing operations. Stop fishing and more people will have to leave their crown jewel area in the lower Rogue.
GOOD MORNING!!
EBUCK
You posted, "the fire on the southwest flank took off on a rampage through thousands of acres of beetle-killed timber on the Fremont National Forest."
Hmmm... beetle killed timber huh, probably locked up so no one can harvest them. What a waste, don't get me wrong I love to backpack and visit wilderness areas that are pristine and healthy but this is insane to have unhealthy forests sit and wait for lightning to strike.
You are right on target. Years ago those trees would have been tagged or sprayed with yellow paint to show that they could harvested for fire wood or whatever by locals needing fire wood for the Oregon winters.
As part of the rural cleansing agenda of the Enviralists of Oregon, they stopped the harvesting of these dead trees in most of the forests in Oreon.
When people who can't afford to convert their wood heated homes to fuel oil can't harvest dead trees for the upcoming winter. They have to leave the area. That results in more rural cleansing of humans from the Druid Cathedral areas that we used to call our forests.
When locals were allowed to harvest dead trees with permits, this cost the Forestry Service basically nothing. The dead trees were tagged or painted by summer college kids hired to do this. Then, the people bought a permit to harvest the dead trees. Their permit costs more than paid for the marking and the record keeping before and after the harvest of the dead trees. Our tax $'s weren't expended.
Now thanks to the eco fascists of the ONRC and their card carrying Druid buddies in the forest service or is that Florist Service, that is not done. So now dead beattle infested trees wait to burn up like thermal bombs.
Thanks to the no roads into this area, even elk have a hard time stomping in that area.
I have been watching these enviral thugs seize this beautiful area and close the roads into it for the past 10 years.
Then they have tried several times to use The Endangered Species Act to stop all steelhead and salmon fishing on the Rogue River below where the Illinois flows into the Rogue.
This was all based on typical Bravo Sierra phoney fish science. Those Illinois steelhead entered the Rogue and probably were headed up stream in the Illinois River in less than 1 to 2 days. I have caught and released Steelhead in the Rogue where the Illinois Steelhead paused to make their trip upstream. They were brillant colored and if the protected seals hadn't scarred them, they were in fantastic condition. They were in better condition than any steelhead I have seen caught and released in Kali or SW Oregon for 10 years.
The Illinois is a completely wild river and very dangerous for most people to even take a kayak down. When the fall/winter rains sent their signals to the Illinois Steelhead in the mouth of the Rogue, they swam upstream like rockets to head up the Illinois. The only danger they had were the protected seals all the way up the Rogue to and past the mouth of the Illinois.
I can remember trying to explain this to some guides who thought that they were envirals in Gold Beach, that there was no problem with the steelhead. That the envirals were trying to put all of them out of work. Fortunately a couple knew and were willing to listen.
If they had closed the lower Rogue to salmon and steelhead fishing, Gold Beach would be basically a ghost town now. Next they would have closed fishing on the Chetco to devastate Brookings and then all rivers /streams to Bandon. Next it would have been the Smith River/Klamath Rivers in Kali to the Eel south of Eureka.
Since the Spotted Owl Rural cleansing, most logging from the Eel in Kali to the Bandon Oregon area had been eliminated, and this left the game fishing industry that caters to fanatics like me. If they could stop that tourist industry the rural cleansing from Eureka to Bandon would have been incredible.
I really believe that last year's Klamath Basin attempted rural cleansing was an effort by these Druids to control the water going from Klamath Lake into the Klamath as it flows from Oregon to and through Kali. Then, they would have rurally cleansed every farmer and rancher down stream on the Klamath from Klamath Lake to the Pacific Ocean in the name of salmon and steelhead. Of course no tree dead or alive could be used by any American.
Here is the link to Carry Okie's aka Mark's book. This book should be used to "Bitch Slap" every governor on the West Coast and every assembly member in all three states. The "Bitch Slapping" will stop when they can pass a test administered by Carry, aka Mark on how to reverse this disaster we have out here due to these enviral demons. (Link to the book that tells us how to get out of the enviral hell without breaking our federal/state and local governments!)
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