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Keep posting what is happening as I will probably be off the boards until tomorrow sometime.

Our grandkids and DIL are returning from a two week vacation on the Jersey Shore. We are picking them up at the airport. So I have to get the Bronco deloused, cleaned out of fly fishing gear and ready for car seats for babies and two women.

These are the only 3 people in the world that I will go to SFO to meet, my grandkids and my DIL!

Granof8, see if you can find out the Floristry Circus Clown site that has the current data on the fire, whatever its name is today.

I think that we are seeing a whole of Hillerizing of web sites and smoking forest data and will see a whole lot more.

If anyone finds some great data that has not been electronically deleted, please save it to your own computer. Save the whole file/files as the url is worthless if they cancel it or remove the file from the url.

Take care and I will catch up whenever.

SATURDAY MORNING UPDATE:
NAME CHANGING TO BISCUIT FIRE

Published: August 10, 2002

Dear Readers:

First, look for a name change on Sunday for this fire: The folks in the City of Florence have convinced fire officials to drop Florence Fire and use Biscuit Fire -- the name of the one of the first fires from the July 13 lightning strikes. Florence came from the name of a creek; Biscuit comes from Biscuit Butte.

Whatever the name, it has become the largest wildfire in Oregon history, now covering 333,891 acres, and surpassing the historic Tillamook Burn.

The current fire boundaries in our area today are reported as:

• two air miles southeast of Oak Flat in the Rogue River drainage,

• four air miles east of the Wilderness Retreat area in the Chetco River drainage,

• two miles north of Gasquet, Calif.

The fire burned around the base of the lookout on Quail Prairie Mountain on Friday, but did not damage the lookout, according to reports.

The weather inversion, while keeping smoke close to the ground in Brookings Friday, helped keep the fire line inactive. A Red Flag Warning continues for weather conditions today. The fire crews from the Chetco River Camp are focusing their activity on protection lines around the structures at Wilderness Retreat, about 15 miles upriver from Brookings and 10 air miles northeast of Brookings.

The fire continues to be active near Agness, Collier Butte and Quail Prairie Mountain. The pre-evacuation alerts remain in effect for the Agness area, Wilderness Retreat and the far upper end of Gardner Ridge Road.

In the Illinois Valley, the evacuation notices continue to be eased. Residents will now have 12 hours to safely leave if an alert is issued.

While there is not immediate threat at this time, Curry County Sheriff Kent Owens and City of Brookings officials have been working to prepare an evacuation plan if it becomes necessary. Officials on the west side of the fire have agreed to ignore boundaries in answering emergency calls while the fire is still a threat.

This morning's report lists the entire fire at 25 percent contained, with 6,132 personnel assigned and a total cost of more than $34.8 million to day.

It's interesting to see how the fire has grown since the lightning strikes of July 13 that started the fires. The Curry Coastal Pilot has placed links to satellite images of the fire at www.currypilot.com. Our friends at Northwest Technical have create a similar set at www.nwtec.com

The Pilot will contiue to monitor the news and send News Alerts as necessary through the weekend. For a special "Thank You Firefighters" poster that you can place in your window, pick up a copy of Saturday's edition (Aug. 10) of the Curry Coastal Pilot.

Thanks for using The Pilot for your news and information,

Charles Kocher

Publisher

FLORENCE FIRE MOVES LITTLE BUT STILL A THREAT

Published: August 10, 2002

By Brian Bullock

Pilot Staff Writer

Despite treacherous weather conditions and heavy smoke smothering all of Curry County Friday, the western flank of the Florence Fire gained little ground, fire officials said.

But that didn't stop them from issuing pre-evacuation notices to residents of three Chetco River area communities.

Curry County Sheriff Kent Owens informed residents of Wilderness Retreat, Cate Road and Upper Gardner Ridge Friday that they should be ready to evacuate if necessary.

The three Chetco River areas join the Rogue and Illinois River communities of Oak Flat, Agness and Illahe on the list of Curry County areas to be issued notices.

The Florence and Sour Biscuit fires joined Thursday to form one 308,000-acre blaze.

Fire officials officially adopted the Florence Fire name for the entire incident.

It is now managed by four teams, two of which are focusing on the western edge – the West Florence Fire – from Gold Beach and Brookings.

Residents of the Del Norte County community of Gasquet voluntarily evacuated Thursday night.

The fire jumped containment lines and burned within three miles of the community before slowing early Friday morning, officials said.

The Chetco River area notification was based on weather and fire activity forecasts over the next three days, according to a Curry County Sheriff's press release.

Despite the warmer temperatures and higher winds since Thursday, the fire has not advanced a great deal, said Cynthia Sage, fire information officer in Gold Beach.

"Yesterday, the fire line didn't move a lot. We have a lot of smoke because of the inversion, but not a lot of movement," Sage said.

The inversion, which has kept a thick, choking smoke blanketing the Brookings-Harbor area, has actually benefited firefighting efforts, according to Kim Martin, incident commander in charge of the Zone 3 efforts near Wilderness Retreat.

"Right now as long as we have the inversion, it's keeping the lid on the fire," Martin said Friday. "It's kind of like a stove with the damper on."

As of Friday, the fire was still five air miles east of Wilderness Retreat and three miles southeast of Oak Flat near Agness. Martin said the the southwest edge of the fire, what was once part of the Sour Biscuit Fire, has been slowed by the Smith River.

"The fire has basically bumped up against the North Fork of the Smith and it's keeping it in check," he explained.

Along the entire western edge of the fire, Red Flag weather conditions are expected through Saturday. High temperatures and low humidity create dangerous conditions for suppression efforts.

"What we need is something between what we've got and real high humidity," explained Jean Bergerson, fire information supervisor in Gold Beach. "We're getting ready to start burnout operations. We don't want high winds where we can't do the burnouts, but we don't want high humidity where the burnouts won't do what we need."

As of Friday, 5,434 firefighting personnel are working on the blaze, including 26 Type I crews, 123 Type II crews, 41 helicopters, 174 engines, 81 bulldozers and 66 water tenders.

National Guard personnel have been brought in for security purposes.

The fire containment effort has been divided into four administrative zones. Martin, of the Great Basin national Incident Management Team, is in charge of Zone 3 and based near Upper Chetco School.

Doug Bright is the Zone 4 incident commander of the Oregon and California Management Team and is headquartered in Gold Beach.

The fire there continues to be active in the Oak Flat and Agness area and crews have conducted burnout operations. Hand crews have been successful in constructing fire lines in rugged areas east of Oak Flat inaccessible to bulldozers.

Wally Bennett's Northern Rockies Management Team is in charge of Zone 2 stationed in Crescent City.

The southwest portion of the fire burned approximately 2,200 acres north of the North Fork of the Smith River triggering the voluntary evacuation of Gasquet. It stopped spreading early Friday morning.

Mike Lohrey is commander of the Pacific Northwest Management Team and is in charge of Zone 1 from Lake Selmac.

The concentration in Zone 1 is on protecting the community of O'Brien in the Whiskey Creek Drainage.

The fire crossed containment lines Thursday and torched 240 acres outside the primary containment line. The fire was suppressed outside the primary line. It did not cross the secondary containment line.

The smoke that has covered the Brookings-Harbor area for days had spread north near Gold Beach by Friday.

Bergerson said the forecast was for a change in the weather and winds beginning Sunday. She said winds are forecast to change from easterly to northeasterly, which would benefit the Agness area.