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Looks like there may be a different editor in charge of the fire news of Oregon Live, this morning. This editor knows that there is a big fire there. The feel good editor, yesterday ignored the fire news until about noon or so much pressure was put on re what was happening re the fires. Then news started to filter out.

S. Oregon fire, crews in race on north end

08/06/02

ANDY DWORKIN, RYAN FRANK and JOSEPH ROSE

AGNESS -- The Florence fire stubbornly edged north on Monday as firefighters rushed to outflank it with knuckle-bruising work to dig a fire line in front of two small communities: Agness to the west and Galice to the east.

Cool weather and a light rain kept even the most aggressive corners of the fire from advancing far, but it also made burnouts impossible and gave firefighters digging lines a dousing.

On the northwestern edge of the 235,000-acre fire, crews cut the first few miles of a planned 60-mile fire line that will stretch from Agness to the California border. On the northeastern corner, about 200 firefighters switched from burnout duty to extending the 40-mile Illinois Valley fire line another 15 miles from Selma to the Galice area.

Eventually, fire managers want to connect those lines by looping north of the fire, cutting off its weeklong meandering toward the Wild Rogue Wilderness.

Time continues to be of the essence, fire officials said, as the weather forecast is changing. Temperatures are expected to rise later in the week, meaning winds could pick up and blow the blaze toward the coast. The last time northeastern winds stoked the Florence fire, it ran roughshod over hills and valleys, significantly increasing its girth.

At a community meeting in Brookings Monday night, fire managers were skeptical that they could stop the fire if it wants to come to the coast, even with the 60-mile fire line.

"I'm 40 percent thinking that we may hold it," Kim Martin, incident commander for the west side, told about 100 people at the Azalea Middle School.

"Oh," one woman said. "That's bad."

"There are too many variables at this point to give you better odds," Martin said. "If we can't hold it, we've got real problems."

He told residents that the north end of the fire had been running hard.

"Because that has a huge potential of getting into the Rogue River and coming down the Rogue River, we're very concerned about that," Martin said.

Brookings resident Tamara Pettinger said south coast resident are not underestimating the fire. "We all know it could burn to the coast in a day if the weather turns around, and that happens here this time of year," she said. "I'm pretty concerned."

Earlier in the day, Roland Shaw, who is leading the attack on the fire's northwest corner, said that toward the end of the week, the fire is "probably going to get pretty active in some places."

Already, that northwest area is "a lot hotter, moving a lot faster" than the rest of the west zone, said Kim Soper, a fire behavior analyst with the fire team based in Gold Beach.

With the fire threatening to strengthen in the coming days, fire officials "have set some things in place as to what we're going to do when (the blaze) hits some trigger points in Agness," said Bob Mallett, operations section chief for the western fire team.

"That could happen in the next couple of days. It would move some people out of here," Mallett said, although he noted that rain could well delay any threat to Agness. "Most likely, it will happen at some point. But we don't know when."

Curry County sheriff's Capt. Mark Metcalf said officers have plans laid out if a voluntary evacuation becomes necessary. Residents will have at least 48 hours' notice before they should evacuate, a fire official said.

"We want people to be prepared, in case the weather turns bad," Metcalf said.

Near Agness, fire crews used bulldozers, chain saws, shovels and their hands to clear line. The work was hard, officials said, because there are no big clearings, called anchor points, along the line for crews to work from.

"We're trying to put line in, and we have no anchors anywhere on this line," Mallett said. "If we can at least get a hold in up here . . . and contain this beast, we'll have an established anchor."

A crew of 20 Chena Hot Shot firefighters from Fairbanks, Alaska, cleared brush along a dirt access road south of Agness. They buzzed through brush tangled with manzanita and pine trees next to the road, which had been cleared with bulldozers. The crew planned to clear more than one mile during a 12-hour shift Monday.

"Our goal is to make sure it (the fire) doesn't get past the dozer line," said Ted Pierce, crew foreman.

The dozer line plus the hot shots' work cleared a 30-foot-wide fire line. Once they are finished, the crews will burn brush and trees below the line to rob fuel from the flames and halt the fire.

"This is a tough piece of ground in here," Shaw said. "We're making good progress. (But) you always wish you could get it done a little faster."

Weather should help On the Illinois Valley side of the fire, cool moist air Monday prevented fire crews from completing burnouts along the containment line west of U.S. 199.

At the same time, they began marching north in an attempt to build up to 15 miles of more fire line around the fire's northern head, between Agness and Galice.

About 500 firefighters were moved to a new camp established at Sam Brown Campground in the hills northwest of Selma to begin the work.

Weather and fire behavior experts said this week's weather should be on the Illinois Valley firefighters' side. In addition to drier condition for burnout operations, a weather front is expected to send 20 mph winds out of the northeast, which would blow against and parallel to the flames, said Erik Christiansen, a fire behavior specialist.

After a fierce weekend of bulldozing, digging, detonating explosives and setting controlled burnouts, fire commanders on the eastern flank said Monday that they had nearly completed fortifying the 40-mile containment line.

The only work remaining is planned burnouts by smoke jumpers in the rugged wilderness south of O'Brien and along Chrome Ridge, fire officials said.

"We think we can hold it," said Mike Ferris, a fire information officer.

On Monday, U.S. 199 was buzzing with pickups hauling furniture, mattresses and boxes of belongings from Grants Pass back into the Illinois Valley. On Monday, fire officials eased the evacuation notice to four hours.

Josephine County Sheriff's Lt. Lee Harman said that about 75 percent of the estimated 1,000 people who evacuated last week have returned home. "We've canceled our security patrols at night," he said.

But fire officials said residents shouldn't become complacent. The cooler weather doesn't mean the threat has passed, they said.

"There's a lot of fire out there -- a tremendous amount," said Mike Lohrey, incident commander. "Until we get that threat contained, that risk remains real."

Here is what Grampa Dave has been warning about for about a week now, the possible western advancement as well as the current northern advancement of the wilderness fire.

"At a community meeting in Brookings Monday night, fire managers were skeptical that they could stop the fire if it wants to come to the coast, even with the 60-mile fire line.

"I'm 40 percent thinking that we may hold it," Kim Martin, incident commander for the west side, told about 100 people at the Azalea Middle School.

"Oh," one woman said. "That's bad."

To put this in perspective if it gets hot and an East wind comes up during a typical Banana Belt Day, the communities of Brookings to Gold Beach could be at peril and as far south as the Smith River Area in California.

This is due to the fact that they can't fight the fire in the wilderness area due to no roads, no timber or brush removal/thinning for over a decade thanks to the agendas of the al Qaeda Green Terrorists who control Oregon.