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EBUCK
Posted on 07/30/2002 6:48:28 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
30-mile fire front menaces southwest Oregon towns
07/30/02
BETH QUINN
CAVE JUNCTION -- Wildland firefighters battled to keep a 30-mile-long wall of fire from reaching the Illinois Valley on Monday where 17,000 people were warned to get ready to flee.
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As the 70,000 acre Florence fire roared south toward the 20,000-acre Sour Biscuit blaze, firefighters dug a last-ditch fire line stretching along the western edge of the valley and southwestern Oregon communities.
Sixteen bulldozers worked the line on the steep ridges west of Woodrat, Tennessee and Eight Dollar mountains while 14 more wait along U.S. 199 in Selma, awaiting orders to join the fire fight.
Firefighters are preparing to set a 34,000-acre backfire that would be larger than most of the other fires being fought in Oregon.
"We are running dozers 24 hours a day," said Rick Hartigan of the Arizona Central West Zone Incident Management Team overseeing the firefighting.
If the fire hits the bulldozed line, they'll bombard it with fire retardant and water, but even with all that, fire officials told residents Sunday night, they weren't confident they could stop it.
"There is a very good chance that this fire is going to reach the valley floor," said Greg Gilpin, an incident commander for Oregon Department of Forestry. "It is so big and so awesome there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop this fire."
Fire officials warned area residents that the fire could reach the floor of the Illinois Valley today in a third straight day of extreme fire behavior.
Throughout the weekend and into Monday, the head of the Florence fire advanced a mile an hour with 150-foot flames and wind gusts up to 40 mph that threw spot fires up to two miles ahead. Three times the fire built plumes 30,000 feet tall and three times those plumes collapsed back into the fire with explosive force, further spreading the blaze.
"We have veteran firefighters who have never seen such fire behavior," said Hartigan.
"The forestry people all have their eyes rolled back," said Tim Birr of the Oregon Fire Marshal's overhead team. "This fire is kind of like the proverbial 5,000-pound gorilla that goes wherever it wants to go."
On the floor of the mountain-ringed Illinois Valley, firefighters went door-to-door on U.S. 199 from Selma to Kerby. At each spot the firefighters took a location fix with a global positioning system to add each building to the maps used for fire planning.
In addition, the structure firefighters assessed the defensibility of each house, noting which had fireproof roofs and brush-free zones that could be defended against fire and which were overgrown with trees and shrubbery and might be impossible to save.
"In cases where a home can be made more defensible, if they can take some simple steps, they will do it," said Birr.
But even homes that are well-prepared can fall victims to the flames, as two homeowners in Oak Flat learned Sunday. All 12 homes along the Illinois River had been singed on Thursday but survived, yet when the fire moved back through the area Sunday, two homes burned. Another home was lost at McCaleb Ranch along with eight outbuildings.
"There's higher percentage of nondefensible homes," said Kyle Kirchner, chief of the Illinois Valley Fire District and Josephine County Fire Defense Board. Homeowners are "interested now in getting defensible space, and it's too late."
Fire officials began making contingency plans for safety zones where firefighters and residents could find shelter should evacuation routes be cut.
Two of the four routes out of the valley to the south have already been cut off by other fires in Northern California. The only exits are north on U.S.199 to Grants Pass and by a remote forest road from Upper Deer Creek near Selma over the 5,000-foot crest of the Siskiyou Mountains to Williams.
"If it comes across through Selma and compromises that artery, we are preparing to shelter in place," said Kirchner. "We can now see the fire from Selma. As far as I'm concerned, it's imminent."
Fire shelters were being set up at the closed Selma School in Selma and the Illinois Valley High School in Cave Junction, both buildings made of materials designed to withstand fires that sit amidst several acres of cleared, defensible space. A third fire shelter planned for O'Brien had not been designated by early Monday evening.
With bulldozers working feverishly on smoke-shrouded ridges to build the last-ditch line to protect the communities under his care, Kirchner's thoughts turn to a new set of nightmare scenarios should the last-ditch line fail to hold the Florence fire.
"If it goes, now we're worried about the caves," he said, referring to the Oregon Caves National Monument 16 miles east of Cave Junction. "There's enough volatile dry fuel that we're going to have problems."
The fire is also moving northwest. Fire officials projected the blaze could reach homes outside Agness by Wednesday. It would have to jump the Rogue River to burn the town itself, but the fire, fueled by strong winds, has jumped the Illinois River several times, said Pam Leschak, Florence fire information officer.
A structure protection team was already assessing homes and removing brush and trees from around structures south of the Rogue River near Agness on Monday.
An 80-acre blaze closed a section of U.S. 199 near the Oregon/California border Monday. The Shelly Creek fire, burning up the steep canyon walls, was causing boulders and logs to fall onto the road, said Carol McCall, spokeswoman, Redwood National State Parks.
The fire also forced the evacuation of Patrick Creek Lodge, Patrick Campground, Bar-O-Boys Ranch, and a few houses near Gasquet, 20 miles northeast of Crescent City, Calif., in the Smith River Canyon. You can reach Beth Quinn at 541-474-5926 or by e-mail at bquinn@terragon.com.
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EBUCK
EBUCK
My family owns property in the rockies. We weren't hit by fire. But when we get our next insurance bill (or worse, when the insurance companies refuse insurance), the true cost of green "stewardship" of our wilds will become apparent. There will be a long term move out of the mountains because of cost and unavailablity of insurance--exactly what the greens wanted.
I tell you, behind closed doors, they are celebrating. All they have to do is hunker down and weather the political storm (which the media will let them do) and they have already achieved one of their dearly held long-term goals. Humans out of the Rockies.
5.8 miles? Wow, that's quite a fire.... Either that or the reporter held the '0' key down for too long...
I've got a buddy who just went down there to help his parents cut a firebreak around the house. Here's to hoping they don't have to evacuate.
EBUCK
EBUCK
SaveOurEnvironment.org has a contact address right here.
My email...not a real nasty nastygram. I don't want to give them reason to claim the VRWC is making terroristic threats :
Save a tree: fight a wildfire. Trees can't scream. Not even when they're on fire. Thanks to you, over three million acres forests have been charred to ash so far this year. Fish are being cooked to death in the streams. Animals are being roasted alive. All thanks to you people. I know you could care less about the human toll, but you ought to at least care about that which you claim to care.
You've had years to see if your ideas were better than common sense timber management. Your ideas failed miserably, and thanks to you we might not have any forest left soon.
...OOOOOOOOOOOOO another thing we can do is FREEP THIS ANTI-SUV POLL!!! (Best you can do is "non of the above", but we've got to start waking these people up out of their little fantasy world.)
Here is a photo of the Governor of Oregon working at an Enviral Fund Raiser Oregon while Oregon is burning up/down:
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