Florence fire jumps lines, makes tracks for Brookings (SW Oregon)

bttt

Finally went a back door to get this fire map from 8 August. Remember the two fires merged yesterday. For a comparison go to the map that Granof8 just posted and super impose it in your mind to this map. Then remember the green on this map was what was left of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area. Is there any to save the bit mat of this before it disappears:

The Green is what was left of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness when this map was done. Probably the evening of 8/7/2002.

SATURDAY MORNING UPDATE:
NAME CHANGING TO BISCUIT FIRE

Published: August 10, 2002

Dear Readers:

First, look for a name change on Sunday for this fire: The folks in the City of Florence have convinced fire officials to drop Florence Fire and use Biscuit Fire -- the name of the one of the first fires from the July 13 lightning strikes. Florence came from the name of a creek; Biscuit comes from Biscuit Butte.

Whatever the name, it has become the largest wildfire in Oregon history, now covering 333,891 acres, and surpassing the historic Tillamook Burn.

The current fire boundaries in our area today are reported as:

• two air miles southeast of Oak Flat in the Rogue River drainage,

• four air miles east of the Wilderness Retreat area in the Chetco River drainage,

• two miles north of Gasquet, Calif.

The fire burned around the base of the lookout on Quail Prairie Mountain on Friday, but did not damage the lookout, according to reports.

The weather inversion, while keeping smoke close to the ground in Brookings Friday, helped keep the fire line inactive. A Red Flag Warning continues for weather conditions today. The fire crews from the Chetco River Camp are focusing their activity on protection lines around the structures at Wilderness Retreat, about 15 miles upriver from Brookings and 10 air miles northeast of Brookings.

The fire continues to be active near Agness, Collier Butte and Quail Prairie Mountain. The pre-evacuation alerts remain in effect for the Agness area, Wilderness Retreat and the far upper end of Gardner Ridge Road.

In the Illinois Valley, the evacuation notices continue to be eased. Residents will now have 12 hours to safely leave if an alert is issued.

While there is not immediate threat at this time, Curry County Sheriff Kent Owens and City of Brookings officials have been working to prepare an evacuation plan if it becomes necessary. Officials on the west side of the fire have agreed to ignore boundaries in answering emergency calls while the fire is still a threat.

This morning's report lists the entire fire at 25 percent contained, with 6,132 personnel assigned and a total cost of more than $34.8 million to day.

It's interesting to see how the fire has grown since the lightning strikes of July 13 that started the fires. The Curry Coastal Pilot has placed links to satellite images of the fire at www.currypilot.com. Our friends at Northwest Technical have create a similar set at www.nwtec.com

The Pilot will contiue to monitor the news and send News Alerts as necessary through the weekend. For a special "Thank You Firefighters" poster that you can place in your window, pick up a copy of Saturday's edition (Aug. 10) of the Curry Coastal Pilot.

Thanks for using The Pilot for your news and information,

Charles Kocher

Publisher

FLORENCE FIRE MOVES LITTLE BUT STILL A THREAT

Published: August 10, 2002

By Brian Bullock

Pilot Staff Writer

Despite treacherous weather conditions and heavy smoke smothering all of Curry County Friday, the western flank of the Florence Fire gained little ground, fire officials said.

But that didn't stop them from issuing pre-evacuation notices to residents of three Chetco River area communities.

Curry County Sheriff Kent Owens informed residents of Wilderness Retreat, Cate Road and Upper Gardner Ridge Friday that they should be ready to evacuate if necessary.

The three Chetco River areas join the Rogue and Illinois River communities of Oak Flat, Agness and Illahe on the list of Curry County areas to be issued notices.

The Florence and Sour Biscuit fires joined Thursday to form one 308,000-acre blaze.

Fire officials officially adopted the Florence Fire name for the entire incident.

It is now managed by four teams, two of which are focusing on the western edge – the West Florence Fire – from Gold Beach and Brookings.

Residents of the Del Norte County community of Gasquet voluntarily evacuated Thursday night.

The fire jumped containment lines and burned within three miles of the community before slowing early Friday morning, officials said.

The Chetco River area notification was based on weather and fire activity forecasts over the next three days, according to a Curry County Sheriff's press release.

Despite the warmer temperatures and higher winds since Thursday, the fire has not advanced a great deal, said Cynthia Sage, fire information officer in Gold Beach.

"Yesterday, the fire line didn't move a lot. We have a lot of smoke because of the inversion, but not a lot of movement," Sage said.

The inversion, which has kept a thick, choking smoke blanketing the Brookings-Harbor area, has actually benefited firefighting efforts, according to Kim Martin, incident commander in charge of the Zone 3 efforts near Wilderness Retreat.

"Right now as long as we have the inversion, it's keeping the lid on the fire," Martin said Friday. "It's kind of like a stove with the damper on."

As of Friday, the fire was still five air miles east of Wilderness Retreat and three miles southeast of Oak Flat near Agness. Martin said the the southwest edge of the fire, what was once part of the Sour Biscuit Fire, has been slowed by the Smith River.

"The fire has basically bumped up against the North Fork of the Smith and it's keeping it in check," he explained.

Along the entire western edge of the fire, Red Flag weather conditions are expected through Saturday. High temperatures and low humidity create dangerous conditions for suppression efforts.

"What we need is something between what we've got and real high humidity," explained Jean Bergerson, fire information supervisor in Gold Beach. "We're getting ready to start burnout operations. We don't want high winds where we can't do the burnouts, but we don't want high humidity where the burnouts won't do what we need."

As of Friday, 5,434 firefighting personnel are working on the blaze, including 26 Type I crews, 123 Type II crews, 41 helicopters, 174 engines, 81 bulldozers and 66 water tenders.

National Guard personnel have been brought in for security purposes.

The fire containment effort has been divided into four administrative zones. Martin, of the Great Basin national Incident Management Team, is in charge of Zone 3 and based near Upper Chetco School.

Doug Bright is the Zone 4 incident commander of the Oregon and California Management Team and is headquartered in Gold Beach.

The fire there continues to be active in the Oak Flat and Agness area and crews have conducted burnout operations. Hand crews have been successful in constructing fire lines in rugged areas east of Oak Flat inaccessible to bulldozers.

Wally Bennett's Northern Rockies Management Team is in charge of Zone 2 stationed in Crescent City.

The southwest portion of the fire burned approximately 2,200 acres north of the North Fork of the Smith River triggering the voluntary evacuation of Gasquet. It stopped spreading early Friday morning.

Mike Lohrey is commander of the Pacific Northwest Management Team and is in charge of Zone 1 from Lake Selmac.

The concentration in Zone 1 is on protecting the community of O'Brien in the Whiskey Creek Drainage.

The fire crossed containment lines Thursday and torched 240 acres outside the primary containment line. The fire was suppressed outside the primary line. It did not cross the secondary containment line.

The smoke that has covered the Brookings-Harbor area for days had spread north near Gold Beach by Friday.

Bergerson said the forecast was for a change in the weather and winds beginning Sunday. She said winds are forecast to change from easterly to northeasterly, which would benefit the Agness area.

Thanks!

I can't believe how slow the Pilot has been in getting out the most important news since the Japanese pilot attacked Brookings in WWII.

There was nothing this morning on their site. The news from from Thursday, which meant that it was Monday thru Wednesday old news.

The sporadic and on and off coverage of this fire by the Pilot and other fish wraps around the fire are showing that the newspapers no longer have the ability to cover real news events. They are more like semi current pc history synopsis instead of news.

When you throw in the PC spin and diversity push that most newspapers spend most of their resources on, the newspaper becomes less relevant everyday with their semi history synopsis posing as news.

You have provided us a lot more updates than the 4.5 newspapers who supposedly are covering this story. We thank you.

The news dies around here on the weekend, so I haven't heard zip. Thanks for keeping this upfront, Gramps. We love ya.

Andy Kerr!!! This photo has him so cleaned up and slick looking I hardly recognized him! :<)

Hello sweetness. Hey, at the rate we're going, we won't have to cook the stupid owl, they come straight out of the forest roasted these days!

Thanks for all your updates a great info, Granof8. It's appreciated.

I know that the news up there dies from Thursday night until Monday or Tuesday.

However, these fires are one of the most significant things that has happened to SW Oregon since the pioneers came to settle.

So it is amazing that the coverage of them since July has been so terrible.

Of course we saw this with the Klamath Basin Crisis last year. If it had not been for Freepers, we would not have known what was happening.

So as usual the Freepers cover the news.

This why we should all cancel our subscriptions to any fish wrap and send the monthly savings to Free Republic. To insure that we get the news.

Granof8 has been better than any on the site reporter. She should get the burnt cinder reward for "Hot and up to date News!"

Hope you are getting a bit of relief from the smoke over there in the valley. We've had a little here in Gold Beach but it has been a real bear down in Brookings.

You two great freepers take it easy and thanks for all the news.

The plane carrying our kids and DIL is at least 30 minutes early (no jet stream to buck).

So we are heading to SFO to pick them up and take them home.

The Bronco has cleaned inside and out and is ready for precious cargo instead of stinky fishing gear and an fish every now and then.

Everyone have a safe saturday and keep us up dated.

From the World (Coos Bay) Newspaper, looks like the Bandon fire was not caused by a motor vehicle accident after all.

Bandon safe as southern Oregon burns

Bandon Fire Chief, Lanny Boston, said "everyone pulled together on this fire. No turf battles, that's the way we are going to get through this fire season is to work together." - World Photo by Madeline Steege
By Andrew Sirocchi, Staff Writer

BANDON -- Flames licked the sky near Bandon Friday when a fire spread across a wildland lot and skipped across U.S. Highway 101, shutting residents' access to dozens of homes before being stopped near a line of rural properties.

"When it was burning I could feel the heat on my face," said property owner Brad Pearson, who spotted the blaze in the early morning less than 100 feet from his home.

The gorse and beach pine fire was reported at about 10 a.m. and charred about 6 acres approximately five miles north of Bandon before being extinguished. And while the flames could have engulfed much more, it was people's fears and frustrations that erupted in the first minutes of the fire.

Dale and Sherry Harlow, whose Beverly Lane property was scorched by jumping embers, kept their sprinkler system turned on to douse their front lawn. Dale Harlow said he was asleep when a neighbor alerted him the fire was spreading across the road from his 1-acre property.

"My wife went ballistic," Harlow said. "She got the dogs in the car and went down the driveway but I couldn't have driven out."

Sherry Harlow was able to escape but Dale Harlow, who was delayed while he turned on a hose and readied himself to leave, was stopped by a wall of flames across the street and by a fire tender driving down the gravel road in front of his home.

The tender sprayed down trees and brush that were rapidly feeding the blaze while friendly winds pushed the flames away from the property owners' home.

While the cause of the fire is still unknown, Bandon Fire Chief Lanny Boston said the blaze is being considered suspicious and that firefighters could find no natural causes.

"I'll tell you right now that from the looks of it, it was man-caused," Boston said.

The Coos Forest Protective Association is investigating the blaze.

Tom Fields, a spokesman for the CFPA, said the fire likely provided a show for those who could see the blaze from afar.

"When fire burns gorse it generates pretty dramatic flame lengths," Fields said. "It's pretty dramatic to watch."

Gorse leaves, made up of an oily substance, cause fire to burn hot and intense, Fields said, and send flames shooting dozens of feet in the air.

"It's just a like a chemical that causes very intense flames," Fields said. "It burns hot and it typically burns very quickly."

Making matters worse, the thick brush of prickly gorse kept firefighters from entering the deeper areas of the lot, where flames periodically sparked trees and brush into plumes of fire and smoke. A helicopter under contract from Menasha was called to douse the blaze where firefighters couldn't venture.

Dropping down to pick up 50-gallon loads of water from nearby cranberry bogs, the helicopter played a large role in stopping the blaze from spreading in areas where firefighters couldn't reach.

"He made it rain on the guys pretty good," Boston said.

All fire agencies from around the county responded to a mutual aid call to help extinguish the fire. CFPA alone brought in three fire engines, a tender and a bulldozer. Bandon fire had five engines, three tenders and several other response vehicles. North Bend, Coos Bay, Charleston and other rural fire districts also sent help.

No homes were lost and no one was injured in the fire but the exterior of a trailer was scorched, according to Boston.

Twice, wind-blown embers and heated particles landed across Highway 101 and ignited two spot fires. Both fires measured about 10 feet by 10 feet, according to Boston, and were quickly extinguished.

ODOT detoured motorists along state Highway 42 and Highway 42S while Highway 101 was closed about five miles north of Bandon for approximately two hours.

Traffic snarled at the Coquille River Bridge with stopped semi-trucks and passenger vehicles at the Seven Devils Road cutoff.

Fearful residents confronted officers hoping to get through to their homes in the first 30 minutes after the blaze was reported. Scanners crackled with the frustrated voices of deputies asking for help manning the roadblocks.

One frantic woman told officers her son was home alone near the blaze on Brown Lane. Officers offered to drive into the area to check for her.

Bandon resident Teri Ursynow, who was returning from work in Coos Bay, was stalled at a roadblock north of the fire. Ursynow told officers she was worried about horses, cows and dogs on her 500-acre ranch near the fire. A cell phone call to her husband later confirmed the couple's property was OK. He had claimed a seat atop their home to watch the fire's progress.

In the late afternoon, with weary firefighters readying to leave, all that remained of a large field where the fire began was a thicket of blackened thorny brush and the acrid smell of smoke. Crews spread sudsy soap and water along smoldering portions of the charred ground to prevent the fire from flaring again.

With the blaze under control, three inmate crews from Shutter Creek Correctional Institution were sent in to mop up the burned lot.

Officer Sandra Morris, of Shutter Creek, said she was supervising an inmate crew clearing brush along the highway for the Oregon Department of Transportation when fire crews asked for help mopping up.

Morris said in all, 39 inmates from Shutter Creek responded.

Irene Ritenour, whose corner lot property at Beverly Lane and Randolph Road was only feet away from the line of charred ground, kept a purple hose on for firefighters and inmate crews. When the blaze began, Ritenour said, three passers-by helped her load her disabled mother, husband and a grandchild in her van and evacuate.

Ritenour never got the names of the Good Samaritans but thanked the three men nonetheless.

"They came so fast it was amazing," she said. "I though they were volunteer firefighters or something."

-- City Editor Elise Hamner contributed to this story.

BE nice to see some of the tree sitters roasted when the crews do the post fire mop up.