Sisters baseball
star is a Tiger page 6
New season brings new
coach to girls soccer page 8
What air power can — and
can’t — do on a fire page 25
The Nugget
Vol. XL No. 34
P OSTAL CUSTOMER
News and Opinion
from Sisters, Oregon
www.NuggetNews.com
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Milli Fire burns near Sisters
Be alert
to health
effects of
wildfire
smoke
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
What started as a small
lightning-sparked fire on
Black Crater in the Three
Sisters Wilderness west of
Sisters blew up into a raging
wildfire that has burned over
10,000 acres and has dis-
placed hundreds of Sisters-
area residents.
The Milli Fire was 20 per-
cent contained as of Monday
afternoon. Containment is
considered as having strong
control lines that are well
mopped up, where there is
a high degree of confidence
that the fire won’t escape
those lines.
A perfect storm of light-
ning activity, hot, dry windy
conditions and competing
fire priorities played into the
growth of the blaze. Sisters
Ranger District Assistant Fire
Management Officer Jinny
Reed recounted the early
development of the fire for
The Nugget.
The fire was detected on
the morning of Saturday,
August 12, after lightning
storms had had rolled through
Sisters Country the night
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
News Editor
Teachers are back in their
classrooms, and soon stu-
dents will be, too. At Sisters
High School and Sisters
Elementary School, they’ll
be walking into revamped
facilities, thanks to several
bond-financed projects. And
some projects will still be
underway.
The projects were funded
by a voter-approved $10.7
million bond, augmented by a
$4 million state grant. A bond
oversight committee, led by
recently elected school board
Inside...
look at the fire and saw that it
had increased in size to more
than 20 acres
“From my vantage point I
saw that the fire had started
near the 2006 Black Crater
Fire, full of standing snags,”
Reed said.
When the Milli Fire,
located southwest of Sisters,
flared up last Wednesday,
growing from 260 acres to
3,500, smoke from the fire
became a concern for resi-
dents in the area surrounding
the fire.
For some, smoke causes
minor eye and nose irritation,
some develop headaches.
But, for those with underlying
health issues, smoke is much
more than an inconvenience
– it can be life-threatening
and, at the very least, an irri-
tant causing serious medical
concerns.
A c c o r d i n g t o D r.
Rod Elliott-Mullens,
See FIRE on page 13
See SMOKE on page 16
PHOTO BY GARY MILLER
The Milli Fire burned with high intensity in tough terrain. The fire was over 10,000 acres at press time.
before. The fire was three
to four acres in size when
detected.
“Around 10:45 a.m. a
full suppression strategy
was approved and estab-
lished upon detection by the
Deschutes National Forest,”
Reed reported. “(The) duty
officer was granted full
Work continues on
school bond projects
By Jim Cornelius
PRE-SORTED STANDARD
ECRWSS
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
Sisters, OR
Permit No. 15
member Jay Wilkins, is track-
ing the projects.
“It’s just so critical to do
what we said we were going
to do,” Wilkins said.
He noted that the district
has been able to take on some
additional work thanks to
cost savings on materials and
labor.
“We’ve been able to make
the dollars go a little farther
in some cases,” Wilkins said.
For example, the dis-
trict was able to expand the
planned painting of some
rooms in Sisters Elementary
See SCHOOLS on page 14
authority to utilize all sup-
pression tools, i.e. aerial
retardant, chain saws, pumps
inside wilderness as neces-
sary to suppress the fire and
keep it small.”
Keeping it small was not
in the cards.
Reed drove out to Forest
Road 1018 to get a better
Sisters was quiet for eclipse
By Cody Rheault
Correspondent
As local residents of
Sisters awoke to smoke-filled
skies, many out-of-town visi-
tors prepared for the coming
full solar eclipse.
In the yard of their rented
home off South Pine Street,
a small group of nine friends
set up a homemade pro-
jection screen to view the
eclipse. They came from Palo
Alto, California, Longview,
Washington, and Portland
and Bend, Oregon to join
their friends in experiencing
Sisters and the eclipse.
Jeff Myers, a scientist
with NASA who works at
the Ames Research Center in
PHOTO BY CODY RHEAULT
A visiting eclipse gazer was well prepared for the brief event. Sisters was
quiet, with handfuls of people watching as the sun darkened.
Mountain View, California,
and one of the guests devel-
oped a homemade projec-
tion system to view the sun.
Utilizing a technique learned
from an amateur astronomer,
See ECLIPSE on page 23
Letters/Weather ................ 2 Sisters Salutes .................. 7 Movies & Entertainment ....13 Hike .................................20 Classifieds ..................26-28
Meetings ........................... 3 Announcements ................12 Bunkhouse Chronicle ........15 Crossword ....................... 25 Real Estate .................28-32