August 2, 2002
Crews light fires to fight fires
By BILL BISHOP
The Register-Guard
CAVE JUNCTION - Fears about having to evacuate thousands of people from the Illinois River Valley calmed along with the winds Thursday, and firefighters were able to widen fire lines protecting the community of Selma from the 164,000-acre Florence fire.
More calm winds and cool, moist air are predicted for the weekend, with rain possible Monday. Despite the favorable forecast, the Florence fire will burn for months, a fire official said Thursday.
Smoke rises to about 12,000 feet Thursday west of Selma.
Firefighters were able to widen fire lines, protecting the community from the 164,000-acre Florence fire.
"Obviously, we'll continue to have fire within the established containment lines until we have significant rain in the fall," fire information officer Mike Ferris said.
Bulldozers had carved lines linking a twisting network of logging roads into the primary line of defense Tuesday, but firefighters had to wait until late Wednesday night for the wind to shift so the fires they ignited would not spread toward town.
``Ma Nature does it on her own schedule,'' said Erik Christiansen, fire behavior analyst on the Florence fire, as he watched the burnout from a pickup truck. ``We can predict it, but she's still in control.''
Burnouts are fires that are lit between a wildfire and a bulldozed containment line to eliminate fuel for the advancing wildfire. Firefighters completed about five miles of burnouts overnight Wednesday.
Ferris saw the results at first light Thursday. "It was doing exactly what we planned it to do," he said. "It was actually pretty."
By the weekend, three separate firefighting operation centers will be working to surround and contain the Florence fire and the Sour Biscuit fire, which extends into Northern California from about two miles south of the Florence blaze.
Scott Hall, a firefighter from Prospect, works on an oak that was blocking a road west of Selma on Thursday.
Fire officials expect that the two fires, both started by lightning during a July 13 storm, eventually will join. However, they don't expect that to cause any significant new control problems.
The present Cave Junction-based operation will continue working on the critical east and north sections of the fire while new operations centers will be established in California for the southern end, and probably at Gold Beach to contain the western flank, Ferris said.
Less than 5 percent of the Florence fire was reported contained as of Thursday night. More than 1,300 firefighters are currently working the fire, which to date has cost more than $6 million to fight. And additional manpower and machinery poured into the valley Thursday.
If the favorable weather continues, officials said crews may be able to finish their burnouts by Sunday. That would widen the 35-mile-long bulldozed fire line protecting the populated area east of the fire.
When that critical work is done, residents of Selma, Cave Junction, Kerby and O'Brien will literally be able to breathe easier while crews work to contain both the Florence and the Sour Biscuit fires, Ferris said.
"It (containment) goes pretty fast once you get it going," Ferris said. Mop-up operations, where crews work by hand to extinguish smoldering fires within containment lines and monitor the fire for new flareups, will likely continue for several weeks, he said.
With the threat diminishing, most local residents are staying rather than heeding fire commanders' advice to evacuate. The Red Cross reported Thursday that only 950 people had registered as having left their homes since Sunday.
``I certainly feel better today,'' Illinois Valley Fire Chief Kyle Kirchner told a community meeting on the football field of Illinois Valley High School. ``We are close to turning that corner to relief.''
At the edge of a bulldozed fire line north of Eight Mile Mountain on Thursday, Dave Huber of Eugene waited for a burnout to round a nearby hill and descend to the line under his fire engine, where Huber and his co-workers were assigned to stop it.
Over the past two days - after initial public alarm over an evacuation notice that gave 17,000 residents 30 minutes to clear out if the fire reached the populated parts of the valley - Huber said he had noticed a change among local residents.
"They're starting to calm down now. They're finally starting to realize what we're doing is preventing that (evacuation) from happening," he said. "You always have to think about the worst-case scenario."
Local residents certainly had a lot to think about, he added.
Huber said he was surprised by how fast the fire moved through tinder-dry manzanita brush that hugs the trunks of Ponderosa and Sugar pines on the southern slopes in the area, and the tall, dense stands of fir that carpet the north slopes.
He said he watched as individual trees turned to torches, shooting brief but dramatic flames 200 or more feet into the air.
Local residents in lawn chairs lined Highway 199 at nightfall to watch the fireworks from a distance, he said.
The smoke column earlier this week rose to 20,000 feet as the fire raced toward the Illinois Valley communities, Huber said, adding, "It's done some things that were pretty amazing." Yet, with concerted effort, firefighters were able to orchestrate equally amazing counterattacks, said Huber's co-worker, Bob Mortensen, who was working his 13th day Thursday on the Florence Fire.
Last week, for example, Mortensen was with more than 80 other firefighters who worked 18 miles up the Illinois River Trail Road to prepare 10 isolated residences deep in the forest to survive the fire's path.
As fire approached through tall trees, it roared so loud firefighters had to yell to be heard even when standing next to one another, Mortensen said, adding that the fire was so hot they could feel it a half-mile away.
As it closed in on one residence, a fire boss from Arizona stayed behind with a pistol-like device that fired mini-flares.
When the fire began sucking air toward itself, the fire boss fired the device into nearby underbrush to create a back burn - a fire that burns back toward a fire, eliminating fuel and stopping the fire's advance.
"The wind was blowing it this way, but it was pulling air the other way, creating its own weather," Mortensen said.
The tactic worked and the fire burned around the residence, sparing it.
"Initially, we saved all of them," Mortensen said. "Then the fire whipped around on us and we lost a couple. We felt bad about that.
"But we saved most of them. You feel good about that."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
To see the pics, click here:
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