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There have been 14 deaths this year from the Green Agendas driven fires.

However, the way that the fires in SW Oregon are now being fought, the way those 4 innocent young people were murdered last year due to the Green Agendas, appears to be out of the system now.

They are now using bull dozers and all resources available to them. They are quietly letting the sacred Green Wilderness East of the Illinois River just burn instead of placing fire fighters at peril. Instead of sending in fire fighters to be in harm's way in areas without roads, any logging or clearing for the last decade.

However, when this over, there needs to be an investigation into what appears to be the old Clintoonian Pink Panty Florist Service maggots allowing these fires in SW Oregon and NW California just burn out of control. That is the usual tactic of the Florists pretending to be florists.

I was warning two weeks ago that these fires were being allowed to burn and would cause tremendous problems due to the tinder box conditions due to the ONRC and Andy Kerr's agendas for the wilderness area.

Well, Grampa Dave is going to his local river to practice fly casting and to drown some of his ugly hand tied fishing flies.

I don't like to fish this crummy river, but stripers are in it. Last Saturday my oldest son and I had a ball casting from his boat anchored 100' for an outside pub/restaurant right in our hometown.

Every time we hooked a fish, the patrons at the pub would cheer. Then, some would boo when we returned the fish (catch and release). It was the first time that we fished in that area. My son has a new 25' River buster that he uses in the California Delta to fish for Stripers. We made the 5 miles upstream from the boat launch about as fast as you can drive. Sure beats my old 15 hp engine that he has now on his spare boat.

One of his best fishing buddies is a professional Bass Fisher and has a 200 hp matched set. They were on the Delta a couple weeks ago going 75 mph from fishing spot to fishing spot. My son said that if a bug smacked you in the face, it felt like being shot by a bb gun. His bones were sore for a week after that ride. In the future they will use his slower 40 mph boat.

Have a good day and keep us posted on what's happening.

Fire Information Update
Florence Fire
Friday, August 2, 2002 08:00 am
Fire Information Center: (541) 592-1029

Status: 164,000 acres Start: July 13, 2002 Cause: Lightning
Location: Five miles west of Selma, Ore., on the Siskiyou National Forest within the Kalmiopsis Wilderness.
Percent Contained: 5 Cost to date: $7.1 million Fire Line to Build: 61 miles
Structures Lost: 3 residences and 8 outbuildings
Personnel: 1,313 Injuries: None Expected Containment: Unknown
Today’s Resources: Eleven helicopters (four Type 1, five Type 2 and two Type 3), 35 handcrews (six Type 1 and 29 Type 2), 44 engines, 21 water tenders, 34 dozers. In addition, structural task forces from many Oregon cities and counties are providing fire protection to residences within the fire area and along Highway 199.
At Risk: Portions of Cave Junction, Kerby, Agness, Gardner Ranch and Selma, private residences in the Oak Flat area and McCaleb Ranch, private inholdings east of McCaleb Ranch, Late Successional Reserve, Illinois and Rogue National Wild and Scenic River, campgrounds.
Closures: Galice and Illinois Valley ranger districts on the Siskiyou National Forest west of State Highway 199 are closed to all public access due to extreme fire conditions. The Bear Camp road #2300 is exempt from this closure.
Cooperating Agencies: Oregon Department of Forestry; Oregon National Guard; Illinois Valley Fire District; Oregon State Police; Josephine County Sheriff’s Dept; American Red Cross; Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office; U.S. Forest Service; Bureau of Land Management; Josephine County Emergency Operations Center.
What’s New: Burnout operations between Selma and Kerby, west of Highway 199, are proceeding as planned and are going well. The fire is highly visible at night from these communities and from the highway. Heavy smoke and some flame will be seen in this area throughout the day and into the night. Structural protection engines are in place in Selma and Kerby during the burnout operations.

Telephone traffic, land line and cellular, in the Illinois Valley is exceptionally heavy, causing problems for fire managers who need to call out of the area. To relieve this problem, residents are asked to reduce the number of phone calls they make. Questions to the fire information center may be asked via e-mail. Send messages to pnwteam2@hotmail.com. Also, current information about the Florence Fire is posted on the World Wide Web at www.pnw-team2.com.

An additional information center is open at the Selmac Lake fire camp. News reporters and photographers interested in visiting the camp are asked to check in at the front gate for parking instructions, then are asked to visit the fire information tent. An incident information officer will escort media representatives on tours of the camp, and will arrange interviews.

A new incident management team is setting up today to take control of the west side of the Florence Fire. This team is based in Gold Beach.

Fire danger remains extreme, and area residents are asked to be extra careful with fire.

There will be a second public meeting Saturday, 7:00 p.m., at the Illinois Valley High School in Cave Junction.

The entire Illinois River Valley remains under a 30-minute evacuation notice. The communities of Agness, Gold Beach, and Brookings are not currently at imminent risk.

The American Red Cross shelter is located in Grants Pass at the South Middle School (541-890-0612). Residents who have voluntarily left their homes are asked to call or check in at the shelter; this will help shelter staff locate these people if necessary.

Pacific Northwest National Incident Management Team 2
Mike Lohrey, Incident Commander

Western senators want protection to thin forests

AP photo/Denver Post, Shaun Stanley

Montrose firefighter Lawrence Sanderson hoses down a smoldering log next to the famous Spruce Tree House ruins within Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado on Wednesday.

By DAVID PHINNEY

Chieftain Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A special provision to reduce the threat of fires in South Dakota's Black Hills has ignited a growing outcry among Western state senators for similar protection for forest thinning projects in their states.

Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., joined a bipartisan coalition of a dozen senators at a Capitol Hill press conference Thursday to ask for legislation that would waive environmental regulations as a means to speed up thinning of the nation's national forests.

Led by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the senators said their states deserve the same treatment as South Dakota, where a new federal law allows the thinning of trees, undergrowth and brush from the Black Hills National Forest and Beaver Creek Roadless Area without the threat of environmental lawsuits.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. slipped the Black Hills provision into the $29-billion defense supplemental spending bill several weeks ago.

"We need to apply similar (protections) to the rest of the states in the West," Domenici said. "We have forests just ready to burn. They are loaded with fuel and just ready to burn."

Campbell said the high cost of wildfires and the damage they do justified speeding up the forest-thinning effort.

"We're all going to pay for it"