[Old Professer]

Why does the headline say the efforts of the firefighters are hampered when the body of the piece clearly refutes that?:

The threat to the Illinois Valley has dropped because of progress with burnouts and the cooler weather.

[Grampa Dave]

The fire fighters now have two objectives:

1. Containment of the total fire, and the cooler weather will help with that for a few days.

2. To build safer longer/wider fire containment lanes with back burns. To have successful back burns, it can't be too damp/wet or under a total inversion layer.

What is dangerous about this fire is that it can simper down during these few favorable weather days. Then towards the end of the week, if it gets hotter as predicted and the winds shift to the NW. Then the fire can get whipped up again and jump the fire containment lines if they aren't big enough.

The fastest and most economical way to increase the width and length of the fire containment lines is via backfires.

If the winds are in the wrong direction and too fast, how big of a fire containment line can a fire jump?

This weekend, the fire in the Dalles, Oregon side jumped the Columbia River and set fires on the Washington side. If you ever saw how wide and deep the Columbia River is at that spot, you would say that was impossible for the fire to jump the Columbia River. It jumped it.

Last but not least due to the fact that there are no roads in and into the wilderness area, with zero timber and brush removal for 10+ years, they will just have to let it burn itself out over the next few weeks. They can only hope to contain it in a circle around the fire. This is where the back fires are need to widen that containment circle. This little fact is not being told to the public.