August 24, 2002 PORTLAND — Crews on the western flank of the massive Biscuit fire have only eight more miles of fireline to prepare before they connect it with the containment line from the south section of the blaze, officials said Friday.
Biscuit wildfire now
largest in nation for 2002
The Southern Oregon blaze
has burned nearly 500,000 acresThe Associated Press
“We’re looking forward to that golden spike when we meet the fireline from Zone 3,” said Susan Mathison, a fire spokeswoman.
Burnouts, or planned fires meant to starve the main blaze of its fuel, went well Thursday and mop-up crews working overnight had little work to do, she said.
“Mop-up crews had a great night last night. We love it when they can’t find anything to mop up,” Mathison said.
The Biscuit fire in southern Oregon had burned 492,342 acres by Friday, surpassing the number of acres burned by a fire in Arizona to become the largest wildfire in the nation this year.
“That’s a powerful fire,” declared President Bush, who flew over the blaze Thursday morning during his visit in Oregon.
Officials said the Biscuit fire was 65 percent contained and they were confident it would not jump its northern, eastern or southern boundaries. This week, they have dispatched firefighters and equipment from those areas to the blaze’s untamed western flank, where helicopters continued dropping flammable pingpong balls Thursday to burn out forest as a barrier against the wildfire’s advance.
Officials had estimated on Wednesday that they needed to build 33 more miles of fire line to complete the 206-mile perimeter of the Biscuit fire. But they determined on Thursday that the number remained closer to 39 miles, said Miera Crawford, a fire information officer stationed near Brookings.
Firefighters have made such progress on the Biscuit fire and other serious wildfires in Oregon and Washington in recent days that officials canceled plans to call up about 700 soldiers from Fort Bragg, N.C., to help control them, said Doug Huntington, an information officer at the Pacific Northwest Multi-Agency Coordinating Group in Portland.
“In the last couple of days, the weather has really cooperated on the fires,” Huntington said. “Several of the fires now are
100 percent contained, and several are over 50 percent contained … . So we no longer felt the need to have the military contribute to the firefighting effort.”
The weather was expected to turn drier and hotter over the weekend, however, said Mathison.
The Biscuit fire started with a lightning strike July 13. Since then, the fire has roared through vast portions of the Siskiyou National Forest and almost all of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area in southwestern Oregon.
The Biscuit fire, which is expected to burn into autumn, heads the list of eight serious blazes now burning on public lands in Oregon and Washington, said Joe Walsh at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland. 