Forest Service Chief Calls for Controlled Burns, while in Oregon

KGW TV/AP ^ | 09 August 2002 | Jeff Barnard

[EBUCK]

Head of nail....Meet hammer!!!!

EBUCK

[lobo59]

Delusional enviro-wackos have mislead people too long. Fire is an agent of destruction, not a creative force. The impact of fire is much worse than logging, human use, grazing and all of our activities which have a positive economic empact. The huge costs of these fires fall directly back on us through taxes and deficite spending. It is time to renounce these eco-terrorists and ask if they have been controlling the fires or simply spreading them to advance their pryromanical agenda of destruction.

[Grampa Dave]

Here is what I have been concerned about for a week. The communities SW and W of the Former Kalmiopsis Wilderness, now a blackened and burning inferno, are in harm's way.

This story is from the Oregonian and is talking about the beautiful Chetco River Inn and other homes up the Chetco River NEN out of Brookings:

---

Fire turns toward rural inn, homes

08/09/02

JEFF MANNING, The Oregonian

BROOKINGS -- Normally the Chetco River Inn would be packed with guests this time of year, but the antique-filled bed-and-breakfast in the rugged hills 15 miles east of Brookings is empty.


Co-owner Sandra Brugger hasn't had a paying guest in two weeks, ever since the massive Florence fire prompted officials to close the road leading to the inn and the community of Wilderness Retreat two weeks ago.

Thursday was anything but tranquil for Brugger, despite the dearth of customers, because the tread of heavy boots and the pounding of hammers reverberated through the building.

A crew of firefighters had stormed the roof of Brugger's property in an attempt to save it. They were rigging an impromptu sprinkler system to protect the inn from the stubborn, powerful blaze that Thursday pushed down the Chetco River drainage directly toward Brugger's inn.

More than 5,000 firefighters and support staff are fighting the Florence fire, which covers about 463 square miles in Southwest Oregon and northwestern California. Although favorable weather limited the fire's advance in the Agness area, east winds gusting to 40 mph and temperatures in the 90s gave the blaze new vigor in the steep hills and valleys east of Brookings. Forecasters are predicting east winds could reach 50 mph today.

Fire officials issued a 24-hour evacuation notice to the area's residents Thursday afternoon. Curry County Sheriff Kent Owen met earlier in the day with Brugger and 30 other residents of Wilderness Retreat and other nearby neighborhoods.

"Unfortunately, this thing is getting ready to blow up," said Owen. "It's been sort of idling the last few days. But with the wind change, it could go into high gear."

Leaders of the firefighting team are moving new resources to the Chetco drainage. Thursday, fire officials frantically assembled a new base camp large enough to house 1,000 firefighters on a pasture about five miles downstream from Wilderness Retreat. About 400 multicolored dome tents were set with military precision on one side of the field.

Area residents were first warned a week ago of the possibility of evacuation. Some have already moved their families out. Lonnie Reneman said he moved his wife, three children and pets to a friend's place in Brookings on Wednesday. He returned Thursday for one last effort to fireproof his house.

Like many of his neighbors, Reneman voiced confidence in the firefighters' ability to stem the fire's progress. His kids are enjoying the temporary move, he said, viewing it "as just another camping trip." Reneman is trying to remain similarly buoyant. "You've just got to deal with it," he said. "There's no use crying over milk that hasn't been spilled yet."

Others in the crowd vowed to stick it out and stay with their homes. Though falling ash sprinkled on cars as the folks met, no flames were visible, even in the distant hills, leading some residents to doubt that the situation was really all that grim. Bob Wilhite said he's been building his house for two years and is still doing some Sheetrock and tile work. "I'm not gonna pick up and leave now," he said. "These guys seem pretty good at what they do."

Owen and others urged residents to leave promptly if the evacuation order is given. With current wind conditions, the blaze can move quickly. The gusty wind has led to spot fires -- started by wind-blown embers -- nearly a mile in advance of the main fire.

Many area residents have moved out significant personal items. "We've removed some of the more important pieces of furniture," said Brugger, the innkeeper. "We are so grateful for the help," Brugger says, looking at the three yellow-clad firefighters straddling her roofline. She made homemade ice cream for the workers, some of whom have come from as far away as Yellowknife in the Northwest Territory of Canada.

If Jim Littlepage's structure protection system works, some Wilderness Retreat residents will come back to undamaged homes -- even if the fire does sweep through. Littlepage, former member of the Hillsboro Fire Department, is overseeing fire crews rigging sprinkler systems as a last-ditch method of saving structures.

Crews strung fire hose from the Chetco River up to, over and around Wilderness Retreat homes. A series of portable pumps sends river water through the hoses to the sprinklers that douse the houses and nearby land. For houses too far from the river, they'll feed the sprinklers with tanker truck water.

About 50 houses in all have been rigged with sprinklers.The houses will be wetted down a couple of hours a day, Littlepage said.

"We saved 840 residences in the Rodeo fire in Arizona using this system," he said. "I've seen houses intact even as the fire has swept right over it."

[EBUCK]

This is horrible! I hope we can learn from these fires and take the power back from the eco-naughts!!

Click on Picure

EBUCK

[Grampa Dave]

I agree totally with your reply and will repost it:

Delusional enviro-wackos have mislead people too long. Fire is an agent of destruction, not a creative force. The impact of fire is much worse than logging, human use, grazing and all of our activities which have a positive economic empact. The huge costs of these fires fall directly back on us through taxes and deficite spending. It is time to renounce these eco-terrorists and ask if they have been controlling the fires or simply spreading them to advance their pryromanical agenda of destruction.

The only thing that I would add is that most people don't realize that these uncontrolled fires are the most effective tools the Green Terrorists have for rural cleansing around these fires, during and after the fires.

In fact your statement reply is so good that it will end up on my home page. Thank you.

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

I wonder what these wackos think of their worshiped Crater lake. You can hardly see the water from the top of the crater thanks to the green Al Queda, watermelon, arsonists.

[Grampa Dave]

I can't wait to get your stickers to put them on my Bronco and give a few to a few others.

If this damn fire moves to Kali and burns a lot of that beautiful area, I will be buying more from you for our local enviral let it all burn down nazis.

The Upper Chetco River area is one of the most beautiful areas in the world only the Smith River may surpass or equal it. The lower Rogue area from the Rogue Wilderness Area down to Gold Beach is my play ground. We planned another visit this September.

Now all of these beautiful areas are in terrible peril due to these enviral nazi agendas to burn it all down. The innocent people living and working in these areas could lose their homes and pay checks or businesses before this is over.

May God Damn all of these Enviral Green Nazis! They are far more dangerous to us than the al Qaeda thugs/terrorists. There is no controlling legal authority over them. So they do things like this to innocent Americans.

[EBUCK]

My printer says today or monday they'll be done. Won't be long now!

EBUCK

[yoswif]

They're not really the Forest Service anymore. It's more like the US Dept. of Arson for Profit. Their motto is "the more trees we burn, the more green we earn".

Solution; get rid of the USFS and let local citizens manage our forests through their local school board. Congress can give us a single page of regulations subject to change by 2/3 majorities of both houses (normal size typing paper with normal spacing and print size) and we'll manage our forests in the best interests of our local economy and our local environment.

[Grampa Dave]

I cancelled a hunting trip years ago in the areas around Crater Lake. That was the dry October that eventually caused the Oakland fires in our area.

My sons met me up there. One was fishing and the other was riding his mountain bikes. The mountain biker and I went out to check for elk hunting. It was so dry and the area even then was choked with dead trees and brush. This son asked me not to hunt as it was really too dry and dangerous. So I cancelled the hunt and we just did the tourist thing in the old WPA buildings down the road going to Shady Grove.

Later that weekend we ended up with the terrible Oakland Hills fires in the Bay area.

I can imagine how bad that area is now with the Green agenda to blacken Oregon the past 10 years.

[Grampa Dave]

Sounds good. However, I would not want our pro lesbo and green jihadist school board to control our forest lands. We would be safer under Babbitt, Clintoon, and Jake Reno.

Our local Nazi eco PC/Diversity Driven Nannies are truly scary people.

[Grampa Dave]

Is the Florence Fire link site down for you too?

[Granof8]

Can't access it this morning either.

[Grampa Dave]

From the Oregonian at the Oregon Live site:


Wildfire News
A Special Report with The Oregonian
More From The Oregonian

Wildfire News
Two Oregon wildfires become one giant inferno

08/09/02

R. GREGORY NOKES

AGNESS -- Driven toward the south by strong winds, the Florence and Sour Biscuit wildfires burned Thursday as one mammoth blaze more than three times the size of the city of Portland.



Fire officials said they would henceforth consider them a single fire, called the Florence, burning 296,133 acres in both Oregon and California. Portland, a city of a half-million people, is 89,628 acres.

Southwest Oregon communities were threatened in nearly every direction: Agness on the north, the populated Illinois Valley on the east and, potentially, Brookings -- 11 miles west on the Oregon coast. Smoke has been heavy in Brookings most mornings this week.

Agness and the Illinois Valley remained under evacuation alerts: 24 hours' notice for Agness and eight hours' notice for the Illinois Valley. Fire spokesman Tom Valluzzi said the fire line protecting the Illinois Valley had passed its first significant test against strong overnight winds Wednesday.

"We're feeling better about the Illinois Valley," Valluzzi said from the eastside fire headquarters in Cave Junction.

The wind also blew the fire away from Agness at the confluence of the Rogue and Illinois rivers, about 20 miles from Gold Beach on the Oregon coast. The Curry County sheriff's office has a contingency plan to close the Rogue to popular jet boat and rafting traffic, in the event of a full evacuation, said Agness Fire Chief Bill Scherbarth.

No other fire in recent memory has closed the Rogue River to boat traffic, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The agency issues permits to 120 people a day to float the wilderness section of the river -- a four-day trip.

While the situation had improved to the east and north, concern mounted to the west that the blaze could burn along the banks of the Chetco River to Brookings, a city of 5,400 people. The fire had approached within two miles of Wilderness Retreat, a 20-home community east of Brookings, and residents there were told to be ready to evacuate.

While officials preferred no wind, they said winds out of the north Thursday were the best of a bad deal because the fire lines on the south were the most secure around the fire's 202-mile perimeter. The wind on the east side was clocked at 10 mph, gusting to 20 mph on ridgetops.

Fire officials divided the blaze into three weather zones because conditions varied greatly over the 463-square-mile fire.

Valluzzi said smoke was blowing into Redding, Calif., about 120 miles south.

[EBUCK]

Rhode Island.....1045 square miles
Kalmiopsis fire...463 square miles

And it aint done yet

EBUCK

[Granof8]

From Oregon Live

Lumber companies not hurting from fires

08/08/02

DYLAN RIVERA

Wildfires may be eating up far more than the usual amount of Oregon timber this summer, but it appears that forest products companies will avoid having their profits go up in smoke.

The Oregon Department of Forestry estimates that 83,253 acres of state and private land have burned, said Rod Nichols, spokesman for the agency.

That's about 40 times the average amount of forestland that would go up in smoke by July, but it's still not enough to change the global market price of lumber and logs.

"While this amount of wood seems like a lot, in the global international lumber and pulp market, it's not that significant," said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council in Portland. "But in the regional situation it is very significant."

Most of the timber burning right now wouldn't have been cut soon anyway, because of federal harvesting restrictions.

The federal government owns the vast majority of forestland that has burned so far this summer. But federal lands compose only a fraction of the state's timber harvest -- about 173 million board feet of the several billion board feet cut statewide last year.

Weyerhaeuser, which became the state's largest private landowner earlier this year when it acquired Willamette Industries, now owns 1.2 million acres statewide. Almost all of it -- 1.1 million -- is closed to recreational uses and most harvesting due to fire hazards. In Washington, the company has closed 1 million of its 1.6 million acres.

"Fire closures are not unusual in the summer," spokeswoman Jackie Lang said. "The difference this year is that the closures are coming much earlier.'

Weyerhaeuser expects to harvest about 10 percent to 15 percent less from July through September than it did in the third quarter of last year, Weyerhaeuser spokesman Bruce Amundson said.

"We normally get into fire danger this time of year, but we would expect additional closures due to fire danger," Amundson said.

Weyerhaeuser, based in Federal Way, Wash., expects a drop in revenue from timber harvests because of the fires but hasn't estimated how much. The company's mills are able to get enough logs from available inventory or the open market to keep mills running as much as they need.

Timber often is salvaged and processed after fires, but there may be less incentive for salvage harvests this year.

Prices for logs used in making pulp are at historic lows, said Kay Berg, editor of Log Lines newsletter, based in Mt. Vernon, Wash. Because those logs are the most likely commercial product of harvesting in burned forests, there's less financial benefit from harvesting in those areas, she said.

"It may be a while before anybody tries to bring any of those logs onto the market," Berg said. "If you've got a lot of pulp-quality logs that nobody wants to buy, then they're going to rot on the ground."

The fires have reignited a debate over who manages their land better -- federal or private land managers.

Timber companies say that their lands are better protected from fires because they clear underbrush regularly and thin their timber stands.

A case in point was the Cache Mountain fire that threatened Central Oregon's Black Butte Ranch resort last week.

While some federally owned land near the subdivision spit large flames, threatening houses, Weyerhaeuser's 40,000 acre tree farm nearby lost only about 1,200 acres to fire, Lang said.

"The fire moved very slowly across our land because we've been thinning and harvesting this area," Lang said. "The lack of fuels slowed the fire and allowed firefighters to create fire breaks and stop the flames."

West, with the forest resource council, said that private landowners are actually suffering from the excess fuel available for fires on federal land.

"Fire prone federal land is harming private land," West said. "In many parts of Western Oregon, federal land and private land are in a checkerboard of square mile blocks."

Rex Holloway, spokesman for the U.S Forest Service, said fire danger works both ways: Some federal land is harmed by poorly managed private land.

"There are areas where we do have overstocked stands next to maybe private lands that are not," Holloway said. "But at the same time, we also know where we have just the opposite situation."

[Granof8]

"They're not really the Forest Service anymore. It's more like the US Dept. of Arson for Profit. Their motto is "the more trees we burn, the more green we earn"."

And ....
They are going for new records. Biggest fire, longest fire line. It's all a game to them.

[blackie]

Stop the attacks by the wacko, extreme left-wing, enviro-nazis terrorist's on our Freedoms !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

[Grampa Dave]

Now we know why Wierdhauser is one of the biggest contributors to the Green Jihadists.

This is pure Bravo Sierra:>"That's about 40 times the average amount of forestland that would go up in smoke by July, but it's still not enough to change the global market price of lumber and logs."

It ain't the global market, that Wierdhauser will be selling most of its wood products, it is the local and regional market which will be impacted.

Wierdhauser can cut less trees this quarter, next quarter and next year due to the increased demand because less will come from these burnt up forests. Then, they can raise their prices to exceed their dollar goals for these quarters and next year. So their trees will be reserved for future profits due to the decrease in supply due to these fires and their cut backs in supply. The prices will be very high if you have to build or repair something with wood this year and next year.

[EBUCK]

Yup. Glad I built my house last winter...

EBUCK