Thousands in the Line of Fire in SW Oregon

KGW TV/AP ^ | 31 July 2002 | Jeff Barnard

[Grampa Dave]

From this report it does not appear that the two fires have merged.

It is really hard to get a fix on this situation.

We would appreciate the feedback from those living in the Grants Pass/Medford or Brookings/Coastal area.

[Grampa Dave]

FYI!

Would you locals please keep your ears on your radios and let us know if these fires merger or don't.

[Grampa Dave]

Here is the latest on the SW Oregon fire. News is really hard to get.

However, the latest news shows no merging of the fire.

Please use your ping lists.

[EBUCK]

I've not heard anything about a merger. I actually watched the broadcast news lastnight and they are all over this (after they get all their commercials done that is) and they only hinted at the possibility.

This is getting so bad! And it's only just started. We just cleared our deductible, 10.2 million, and out complete policy runs around 50 million total. Estimate are that we'll double that bt the time we're through. We're so hosed. I'm thinking of taking a leave from work to go help the fight....

EBUCK

[Grampa Dave]

Scary update from Oregon live this morning:

Crews try to cut legs out from under monster blaze

07/31/02, ALEX PULASKI and BETH QUINN


CAVE JUNCTION -- As two Southern Oregon fires marched toward each other Tuesday and a third threatened to join them, firefighting crews and heavy-equipment operators struggled to seal off populated areas from their advance.

Fire officials put all 17,000 residents in the Illinois Valley on a 30-minute evacuation notice Tuesday night, meaning every household should be packed and ready to leave if the wind shifts and sends the fire into to the valley.

"Our intent is to stop this fire, but you need to understand that there is a chance this will not work," Greg Gilpin, incident commander for the Oregon Department of Forestry, told about 500 people at a community meeting in Cave Junction on Tuesday night. "Every citizen in the Illinois Valley needs to think about leaving the valley."

Terry Haines, emergency services director for the Rogue Valley chapter of the American Red Cross, said the potential disaster was more frightening than anything he'd seen.

"When you're talking about losing an entire valley, 17,000 homes, when the southern escape route is closed and there's only one way out of here, when you're looking at a 30-foot wall of fire that no one's been able to stop, you're talking about divine intervention here," Haines said.

Although U.S. 199 has been closed by a fire in Northern California, state officials there have agreed to open it if an evacuation is ordered in Oregon, according to the Josephine County sheriff's office.

Sheriff's deputies drove four routes leading out of the valley Monday and uncovered a potentially serious glitch in the evacuation plan.

Deputies found road crews ready to narrow traffic to one lane on U.S. 199 between Selma and Grants Pass, the main highway leading north. Another crew was putting tar and gravel on the road from Upper Deer Creek to Williamson, which would have slowed traffic to a crawl. Both projects have been put on hold until the fire emergency is over.

Ringed by 5,000-foot mountains and thousands of square miles of timbered national forest and threaded with rivers and creeks, the Illinois Valley is an inland island with only four exits.

"I wanted my own people to confirm that those were open," said Lt. Lee Harmon of the Josephine County sheriff's department, whose job is to oversee the traffic flowing out.

The Florence fire doubled in size to 141,650 acres overnight; Sour Biscuit increased by 9,000 acres to 33,287 acres. To the south, near Gasquet in Northern California, the Shelly Creek fire had spread to several hundred acres.

Gilpin said the Florence fire is headed north and was about six miles from Agness. He said it could reach the tiny historic community on the Rogue River within 24 hours.

Mike Lohrey, who will officially take over command of the fire this morning, said crews are working to seal off communities from potential fire advances with bulldozer cuts and back burns.

"A lot of smoke in the air (will be) the smoke we're going to be making," Lohrey said.

Although crews have established what they think is a secure anchor point northwest of Selma, officials warned that if the fire took off it could begin spot fires two miles ahead of its plume, jumping fire lines and forcing evacuations.

"If it looks like it will threaten particular zones we will evacuate them and not the whole valley," said Jim Wolf, an Oregon Department of Forestry fire prevention planner. Glenn Joki, incident commander on the Florence fire, and others said they had rarely seen the sort of "advanced extreme" fire behavior exhibited during the weekend.

But an inversion layer, fairly mild winds and temperatures in the mid-90s have caused the fire to settle down a bit, at least temporarily, Joki said.

Besides the fire lines and burns being conducted on the fires' eastern flank, Anderson said, California crews were cutting line to the south, the primary direction the fires have moved.

Pat Velasco, fire behavior analyst on the Florence blaze, cautioned crews in a morning written briefing about the flames' unpredictability. "Yesterday was a 'forgiving' day, don't get complacent," he wrote. "The fire monster will soon revive; you will again see Dangerous Aggressive Burning conditions."

Also Tuesday morning, Lt. Brian Anderson's crew at the Josephine County emergency operations center at the courthouse in Grants Pass was staffing the phones on behalf of the Illinois Valley's livestock.

"The phone calls are coming in -- it's almost like a Jerry Lewis telethon down here," Anderson said. "We're getting a lot of phone calls about moving horses and llamas and pigs and chickens. We're trying to marry that information with people offering to help. I think actually we're up over 120 people who've volunteered to take in people and animals."

Gary Brummett, owner of the Deer Creek Ranch, said one of the animals evacuated Tuesday was Tye, a 40-year-old horse ridden by John Wayne in the 1975 movie "Rooster Cogburn," which was made in the Rogue Valley.

On Sunday, the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Josephine County Fire Defense Board mapped out 10 evacuation zones.

Since then, most homes near Selma have been visited twice. First, by deputies or volunteers who went door to door with an evacuation notice. Later, crews of city firefighters, who came from throughout Southern Oregon, went door to door to determine which homes could be defended. At driveway entrances along U.S. 199, firefighters tied yellow, green or red ribbons to signal their evaluation of whether the house could be defended.

Evacuations are voluntary -- not even the county sheriff can order residents to leave their homes.

If an evacuation is called, residents will be notified by door-to-door contact, by trucks equipped with loudspeakers and by local radio stations.

The South Middle School shelter in Grants Pass will hold 250 evacuees, and three more shelters in the city are prepared to open at a moment's notice should a large-scale evacuation be ordered. Each will offer cots, blankets and three meals a day to those forced by fire to leave their homes.

Forty-eight people spent Monday night at the shelter, and 78 others have stopped by to register with shelter officials in case distant family and friends call in to find out if their loved ones are safe. Bryan Denson and Erin Hoover Barnett of The Oregonian contributed to this report.

[Grampa Dave]

It sounds like they have plenty of people, and they have a lot of equipment there.

Also, it sounds like now they are being allowed to fight this fire with any tools from cats to back fires at this time.

I have this terrible feeling that the elite Eco Fascists prevented any real heavy duty work until this thing started to spiral out of control a couple of days ago.

If the elite Eco Fascists, their poster boy governor and their pink laced panty wearers in the Floristry Service prevented the real Forestry Fire fighters from fighting this fire, they need to be arrested and jailed for massive eco terrorism.

[Grampa Dave]

Last nights NOAA Fire/Smoke image map:

[Grampa Dave]

This is new re the fire threatening Agness which is upriver on the Rogue from Gold Beach.

Is there another fire or did the Florence Fire just rip along the Illinois river canyon where no logging and no fire maintence has been done for about a decade?

Meanwhile bulldozers began building a similar line on the north end of the fire to protect the community of Agness, a hub of whitewater rafting on the Rogue River.

The Eco Fascists need to lose their dangerous positions of power and be treated as potential Pyscho Killers. Just lock them up for being Criminally insane and dangersous to the rest of the Oregon population.

[Grampa Dave]

[EBUCK]

What is an WFU fire? (lost green complex)

EBUCK

[Grampa Dave]

I don't know what a WFU is. So far with all of the fires since May, not a single WFU incident has been reported.

[Granof8]

It's the Florence fire. http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/siskiyou/biscuitcomplex.html has a map showing the Florence and Biscuit fires. Rough country there in the Kalmiopsis wilderness.

[tubebender]

I missed the news here in Eureka so far and I will be taking my grandson (slave for the summer) to Costco soon. I

They had saved the Patricks Creek Lodge as of last nite. Did they save the Lodge at the Oregon Caves?

Is the road you mentioned yesterday the dirt road out of Obrien to Happy Camp?

[EBUCK]

They were still "saving" the caves area last I heard.

EBUCK

[Paulus Invictus]

Grandpa Dave, How many members of the evil Sierra Club are there fighting the fires they helped get started? No, don't tell me! There are none? How can that be? They are tree huggers, so why are they not helping protect the trees? Have you noticed that the major news media have stopped reporting the fires? How curious!

Grandpa Paulus

[FryingPan101]

Thanks, Grampa Dave, for the update. Oregon is so near and dear to our family's heart. Our youngest grandchild was born in Eugene. We spent so much time in Florence. We're praying.

[madfly]

ping

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for this link. This is their map and it was done on the 30th of July.

Looks like the ONRC Eco Fascists with their no logging, no roads and no brush removal agendas have resulted in the burning of a large part of the Kalmiopsis wilderness. May God and the Good people of Oregon dam them for this crime!

Why wasn't this fire named the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Fire instead of the miss leading Florence Fire. It has nothing to do with Florence, Oregon (at least at this time).

The pink panty wearing and ONRC card carrying Florist Workers in the Forestry Service probably didn't want the word out that the Kalmiopsis Wilderness was burning up.

Thanks again, and where do you live?

[madfly]

Update on Oregon fires just on FOX.

17,000 ready to evacuate.

Fires have not merged yet.

Bosworth said environmentalists since the 60s have paralyzed forest management.

duh

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!