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Here is another update from Oregon Live/The Oregonian on the Kalmiopsis Wilderness is burnt up fire.

Some of the danger levels to Agness are lower.

However, what they have been keeping from the rest of the world and you have been hearing about it here:

Brookings could be in peril as this fire may decide to move West.

Winds shift to west and slow Florence wildfire's steady march toward Agness

08/08/02, WENDY OWEN, JEFF MANNING and R. GREGORY NOKES

AGNESS: Vernon and Marilyn Smithson sat Wednesday in the living room of their retirement dream home, completed less than a year ago, and watched helicopters ferry buckets of water toward smoke about three miles to the south.

Flames from the huge Florence wildfire crept down the heavily forested ridge visible through the picture windows of their home in the Oak Flat subdivision south of Agness, a resort town of 150. Residents are on 24-hour evacuation notice.

"I'm not panicking," said Smithson, voicing confidence that firefighters could save their new home. But just in case, they'd rented a moving truck and hauled antiques and other valuables to a storage unit in Gold Beach.

The Smithsons and their neighbors in the 23-home subdivision received better news in the afternoon when dangerous eastern winds predicted for the area shifted to the west, blowing the fire back on itself and slowing its creep toward town.

Farther south, however, the Chetco River drainage east of Brookings emerged as a major concern. Wednesday afternoon helicopter crews spotted fires within two to three miles of Wilderness Retreat, a small community of about 20 homes east of Brookings. The fire had begun the day five miles from the town.

Fire officials issued a red flag alert for low humidity, temperatures in the 70s and winds gusting to 22 mph, conditions ideal for fueling an intense, fast-moving fire. The conditions are expected to last at least through Friday.

Fire lookouts in the mountains east of Gold Beach and Brookings reported east winds were blowing in the morning hours, said Mark Wurdeman, a fire spokesman.

Reflecting concern about the potential threat to the Brookings area, much of the leadership of the West Florence firefighting team, including Kim Martin, the incident commander, plan to move from Gold Beach to Brookings in the next two days.

A new team of Oregon and California firefighters will take over leadership of the Florence fire's northwest front.

The change was made in part because of the difficulty crews are encountering establishing the fire line in the southwest quadrant of the fire. While crews used existing Forest Service roads as the foundation for fire lines in the northwest, such roads are uncommon in the southwest. "It's just tough country," said Dick Fleishman, fire information officer. "Those slopes go on forever."

Brookings' approximately 5,400 residents have been waking up for several days to skies darkened by smoke and ash.

"It's been bad, and it's getting worse," said Randy Ullom, a Curry County sheriff's deputy. "I've had a lot of concerned phone calls, people wondering what to do about their pets and things like that in case of evacuation. All in all, they've been calm and collected."

The massive Florence fire, now in its fourth week, had burned over 243,836 acres by Wednesday afternoon, an area more than twice the size of the city of Portland.

In the Agness area, about 400 firefighters and 26 bulldozers continued to dig a fire line on a ridge east of Oak Flat.

The fire had moved within a mile of Lawson Creek, a trigger point for evacuating the Agness area.

If it continued north, the fire likely would reach Oak Flat first. The Smithson home overlooks the Illinois River across from Agness, which is at the confluence of the Illinois and Rogue rivers.

On the Illinois Valley side, crews ignited burnouts aimed at joining the fire lines on the east side of the Florence fire and the lines around the 41,897-acre Sour Biscuit blaze straddling the Oregon-California border.

Fire spokesman Tom Valluzzi said the resurgence of gusty winds later Wednesday forced crews to curtail the burnouts, but said the fires soon would burn together anyway, which would help crews.

"It makes it somewhat easier to fight the fire as one fire," Valluzzi said. "Logistic-wise, you think of it as one fire instead of spreading your forces out. You also don't have to worry about trapping people between the two fires."

Valluzzi said the fire lines protecting the Illinois Valley to the east had held. He said high winds expected from the northwest Tuesday night did not develop, so the fire lines hadn't yet been seriously tested.

But he said the burnout has consumed fuel along a 50 mile stretch inside the fire lines would make it difficult for the fire to cross.

So are Brookings and Gold Beach new places for the less than 100 people who care about this fire to be concerned about.

Are the people in the Illinois River Valley safe for now?