Bush to push for thinning

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) -- President Bush will address forest health issues when he visits Medford on Thursday, most likely pushing for more intensive thinning of Western forests to reduce fire danger.

When they reach Medford, the president and U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith will receive a briefing on Oregon wildfires, according to Joe Sheffo, Smith's press secretary.

Bush and Smith will then be taken on a tour of the area burned by the Squire fire southeast of Ruch. The fire scorched nearly 3,000 acres of public and private land after it was sparked by lightning July 13.

The president's visit comes as Western lawmakers draw up legislation to speed cutting of overgrown forests. Administration officials have blamed tangles of environmental rules for slowing logging on federal lands and want cutting accelerated to meet targets set by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan.

Environmental groups, long critical of the president for appointing friends of timber and other industries to top posts, said the president is simply using Western wildfires to justify increased logging.

"This administration was pushing logging before these fires, it's pushing logging because of these fires, and it'll be pushing logging after these fires," said Nathaniel Lawrence of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The White House on Tuesday invited Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber to join the president in Southern Oregon on Thursday, when Bush will ride in a helicopter over the huge Biscuit Fire and visit a smaller fire closer to Medford.

Kitzhaber has led an effort by the Western Governors' Association to address wildfire threats across the West.

The Bush administration has signed onto the governors' plan of stepped-up thinning, and Bush will promote that Thursday. But the administration has so far not committed to the funding the governors want and in some cases has suggested firefighting costs have escalated out of control.

Governors from Idaho, Arizona and Montana also have been invited to join the president in Medford.

"This is very significant for us," state Republican Party Chairman Perry Atkinson said. "We know that Oregon is one of the targeted states in the next election cycle."

If Atkinson had any doubts, he was jokingly reminded of that in the days just before Bush's inauguration.

"When I met with the president, he leaned over and said, 'Just 6,776 votes, are you going to make it up to me next time?' " Atkinson said, referring to the number of votes that Bush lost Oregon by in the 2000 election.

The current Oval Office occupant will not be the first President Bush to have visited the Rogue Valley.

His father made a presidential visit to Medford in mid-September, 1992. Before that, the last presidential visit came when President Gerald Ford arrived in 1976.

Rutherford B. Hayes was the only other sitting president to visit the Rogue Valley, arriving in September of 1880.

The latest on the fact that Oregon is Still Burning from KGW TV:

The news about the new Apple Fire and the Tiller Fire near JustShe is not good. It appears that these two fires will merge together. Sounds like a rerun of the Biscuit Florence Fire and the ones north of Klamath Falls last month.

Good news seems to be coming out on the massive Biscuit fire where the Green Druid Heaven, the Kalmiopsis Wilderness was before it burnt up. Lets hope that they can get it contained so that it will burn until the fall/winter rains come without endangering the two counties in Oregon.

Families Return Home After Spot Fire
08/21/2002

By JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press Writer

High humidities and light winds helped firefighters get a handle on the massive Biscuit Fire overnight, and by Wednesday crews had only 33 more miles of fireline to complete on the fire's active western flank.

"The fire is looking really good right now," said Jean Schaeppi, a fire spokesman with the National Parks Service. "We didn't have any active fire last night, just some smoldering of the trees."

Schaeppi said the fire could flare up in the afternoon because of a wind shift, but crews did not expect the dramatic spot fires crews saw Monday on the fire's north side.

Residents in the community of Agness were able to return home Tuesday after getting a scare when a spot fire erupted near there Monday.

"We're a little shaken," said Willis Crouse, a fishing guide and volunteer firefighter, who elected to stay with his wife, Deborah, to keep watch over their home while most of their neighbors left. "It was quite a show."

Operations continued to go well elsewhere on the fire, which was 50 percent contained at 489,279 acres since igniting from lightning July 13.

The blaze, which is burning in the Siskiyou National Forest in southwestern Oregon and northern California, is the biggest one to hit Oregon in more than a century. The cost of fighting it rose to $84.5 million, with 6,607 people involved.

Firefighters finished burnout operations Tuesday on the eastern half of the fire, which once threatened the 17,000 residents of the Illinois Valley. That allowed elite hotshot crews to be reassigned while mop-up operations continued 300 feet back from containment lines, said fire spokesman Mike Milosch.

"There is a much more optimistic feeling in camp," Milosch said.

The spot fire on the north side erupted Monday just as deputies were notifying the residents of the 15 homes along the Illinois River at the Oak Flat and Spud Road sections of Agness that an evacuation order in place since Thursday had been downgraded to a pre-evacuation notice.

Fire spokesman Wayne Johnson said firefighters had been clearing around a house Monday afternoon, and the crew boss mistakenly believed he had permission to burn off the debris. Wind whipped embers across the Illinois River. Helicopters and firefighters standing by controlled the spot fire at about 50 acres and no homes were lost.

"When (the fire) got to the other side, it was just like a blowtorch sitting at the bottom of the mountain," said Crouse. "They had crews on it all night. They foamed a couple of the houses here."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service battled a second fire that quickly grew to 6,500 acres on the Umpqua National Forest east of Roseburg, forcing highway and campground closures along the popular fly fishing section of the North Umpqua River.

Located 21 miles east of Glide, the Apple Fire was expected to continue growing to the east and south to eventually merge with the Tiller Complex, which was 45 percent contained after burning 59,400 acres.

Cool humid weather helped slow the spread of the fire, but fire commanders were struggling to get firefighters and equipment due to so many other fires burning.

Here are the Outdoor Media Dimensions Billboard locations..

Prices, 2 on I-5 North (South of Eugene) 1500/1900. One North of Medford (the one that was anti-Catholic if you heard of that) for 450...Let's see what kind of interest we can generate.... Property Address Size

I-5 near Ashland, OR 10x28
I-5 near Talent, OR 10x24
I -5 near Medford, OR 10x20
South Pacific Hwy Medford, OR 10x24
Near downtown Medford, OR 8x18
Exit 27 I-5
In downtown area Medford, OR 8x18
In downtown area Medford, OR 8X18
In downtown area Medford, OR 8X18
In downtown area Medford, OR 8x18
In downtown area Medford, OR 8x18
Near Crater Lake Highway Medford, OR 10x24
Near Crater Lake Highway Medford, OR 10x24
Near Crater Lake Highway Medford, OR 20x20
Near Crater Lake Highway Medford, OR 10x20
In downtown area Medford, OR 8x24
In downtown area Central Point, OR 10x32
I-5 near Medford, OR 12x36
Rogue River Highway Gold Hill, OR 12x32
Rogue River Highway Gold Hill, OR 12x32
Near Foothill Road Grants Pass, OR 8x18
Near Grants Pass, OR 8x18
Near Grants Pass, OR 12x28
Near Grants Pass, OR 10x36
Near Grants Pass, OR 10x15
Near Hwy 99s Eugene, OR 12x36
Near Hwy 99s Eugene, OR 12x36
Near Eugene, OR 14x48
In downtown Eugene, OR 14x48
In downtown Eugene, OR 12x36
In downtown Eugene, OR 12x36
In downtown Eugene, OR 14x48
Near Springfield, OR 12x28
Near Springfield, OR 8x24
Near Coburg, OR 14x48
Near Eugene, OR 14x48
Near Salem, OR 12x36
Near Salem, OR 12x36
Near Salem, OR 12x36
Near Salem, OR 12x36
Near Salem, OR 12x36
Near Salem, OR 12X36
Near Salem, OR 12X36
Near Hillsboro, OR 10x30
Near Eugene, OR 12x36
Near Salem, OR 12x36

EBUCK

Gramps, these so called reporters just parrot the same ol' lines or get it wrong all together. . . . "His father made a presidential visit to Medford in mid-September, 1992. Before that, the last presidential visit came when President Gerald Ford arrived in 1976. "

I met Ronald Reagan here a couple times while he was president....I must appologize for the Chamber of Commerce having their stupid stuffed bear hug him...he looked puzzled by it...

Here is the agenda for tomorrow.

President Bush will arrive Thursday on Air Force One at 9:55 a.m.(pacific) at the Medford (Oregon) Airport and then tour some of the fire damage near Ruch. He will make his speech at the Compton Arena at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Central Point at 12:45 p.m. The speech is by invitation & ticket only, so I do not know if there will be any other access for the public.

I will try to take pictures!! This morning our Sheriff said they have a fenced off area for protestors....that would be the idiots with stuffed fish on their heads....

I want to give him Carry_Okie's book, but I must tell you I'm a bit afraid to shake his hand....the last time that happened Bobby Kennedy was shot the next day. Pres. Bush has enough bad luck without my help!

The legal eco-terrorists are at it again. Not only do they destroy the forests by fighting timber sales throughout the west in front of sympathetic courts but also now they are putting the final nails into the fragile forest and salmon habitat. The so-called friends of the forest have handcuffed the reclamation efforts of Montana that these once scorched forests will take generations if they ever recover. This is strictly by the work of the Sierra Club and other eco-terrorists.

Two years ago the treasured forests of Montana were on fire and over a million acres or 1,500 square miles were burned thanks to poor forest management, a draught and a series of lighting storms. The tinderbox forests went up with a vengeance and burned the pristine virgin and second growth timber into a blackened wasteland. As most level headed timber people know, the current forest fires are so intense that they burn the ground white hot and sterilize that soil up to 18 inches into the ground. This means that nothing will grow in that ground for decades or centuries as opposed to the ancient cleansing fires. The old forests would naturally burn every few years and clear out the fallen branches and undergrowth, but not anymore. The forest clutter accumulates thanks to the lockout by the courts for proper management of the forests.

After the Montana fires the forest products industry wanted to go in and harvest the billions of dollars worth of timber and reclaimate the lands. This would have furnished jobs for the communities of Montana and improved the habitats of the forest creatures and endangered salmon spawning streams.

The legal eco-terrorists quickly moved in and stopped all forest sales and required multiple environmental impact studies. This not only stifled all clean up and harvesting of the dead and dying trees but halted all reclamation projects in these forestlands. The trees have since become unmarketable and the billions of dollars worth of timber have become nearly worthless bug factories. That apparently was not enough for the terrorists; they have stopped any replanting or forest improvements or erosion control. The Congress spent $8 million for reclamation the forests and prepare it for sale. Most of that money was wasted on impact studies to satisfy the ecos eliminating all Federal salvage efforts.

Talking to a forest person in the Missoula area, he described the boondoggle that the ecologists call reforestation. Now they have teams of people walking around these burned forests and shooting trees with paint guns. Hopefully, this does not hurt the poor dead trees. Behind the paint gun shooters is a team of .22 shooters. These guys find the trees with paint markings and shoot the pinecones out of the trees. They of course do not collect these cones like the pinecone harvesters and then send them to the tree nurseries to grow and then plant into healthy trees. No, that would require too much common sense. The legal eco-terrorists have forced the Forest Service wimps to just let those cones drop on the rock hard ground and lay there waiting for a chipmunk to open it or open on its own, hopefully in a century or so.

There are two major problems with the paintball selection and .22 caliber method. First, as stated before the blast furnace temperatures of the fires leaving the ground about as fertile as a parking lot. Second, there are no animals in that sterile environment left to open the cones and scatter their seeds. And what do these cone hunters get for their valiant effort to waste the forests and taxpayers time? They are paid a measly $18/hr to spend a day in the forest shooting pinecones.

When did the Forest Service and Govt become so fearful of the Sierra Clubbers and their fellow eco-mafia? Are they so afraid of having their buildings burned down that they will be forced to make useless symbolic gestures at forest management that they will not actually manage those forests? Or are they afraid of the PC Gestapo to the level of fearing that not saving a dead tree is equivalent of killing a whale? The fact that these eco-gangsters can stop any actions in the nations forests no matter how positive proves how powerful and threatening they have become.

When will we take back our national treasures and manage them in an efficient and healthy manner? The destruction of the Montana forests two years ago by mismanagement of these forests was bad enough. It does not compare to the continuation of a forest desert that is being maintained in the name of ecotopia. Oregon’s once beautiful forests are burning from the same malpractice and we will be heading down the same destructive forest path that continues to blacken Montana!

Pray for GW and the Truth

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