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About Appeal tribune. (Silverton, Or.) 1999-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 16, 2017)
2A Wednesday, August 16, 2017 Appeal Tribune are closed to the public through eclipse day and beyond. The fire likely won’t be extinguished until winter rains arrive, fire officials said. “We understand how disappointed people are,” Willamette National For- est Supervisor Tracy Beck said. Fire Continued from Page 1A blacken one of the most beloved hiking and back- packing spots in Oregon. All totaled, 117,000- acres and almost 30 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail Imagine The Difference You Can Make DONATE YOUR CAR 1-844-533-9173 FREE TOWING TAX DEDUCTIBLE OR-0000393527 Help Prevent Blindness Get A Vision Screening Annually Ask About A FREE 3 Day Vacation Voucher To Over 20 Destinations!!! SENIOR LIVING SOLUTIONS A Place for Mom has helped over one million families fi nd senior living solutions that meet their unique needs. There’s no cost to you! CALL (855) 864-4711 ! 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When lightning storms come through with rain, some fires pop up imme- diately while others smol- der in what are known as strike trees — trees hit by lightning. As the forest dries from the storm, the spark can remain for weeks and even months before the tree falls down, or a gust of wind sweeps it into the forest to catch fire. In July of 2015, a weeks-old lightning strike ignited a fire along the shoreline of Marion Lake, also in the Jefferson Wil- derness, on a blue-sky day. The column of smoke came as a shock to the handful of swimmers at the lake that day. The same thing ap- pears to have occurred with the Whitewater Fire. One of the lighting strikes from the June 26 storm hit a tree near the top of Sentinel Hills, about 100 yards off White- water Trail, a popular pathway to Jefferson Park. Nobody was aware of the strike tree or smolder- ing spark, multiple Forest Service officials said. The agency does aerial patrols after lightning storms, but holdovers from previ- ous strikes tend to pop up without warning. “We can’t check every tree in the forest,” Beck said. In any case, the light- ning-struck tree eventual- ly fell into a pile of dry brush and timber, igniting flames and sending up a smoke column spotted July 23. “As soon as it was spot- ted, we hit it with every- thing we had,” Beck said. “We used heavy helicop- ters, chainsaws, water pumps and engaged the fire directly. Our fire- fighters did everything they could to catch the fire before it spread.” Fighting wildfires in wilderness areas is con- troversial. The Forest Service is charged with maintaining the "wild character" of the congres- sionally designated areas, and fires are a natural part of the ecosystem. Many fire experts also believe decades of sup- pressing forest fires has made them more damag- ing in the long-term. "The Forest Service ac- knowledges that putting out today’s fire will likely make tomorrow’s fire big- ger, yet every day they still try to put out damn Council Continued from Page 1A www.edwardjones.com Member SIPC LOCAL ADVISORS Salem Area Vin Searles Jeff Davis Keizer Area Surrounding Area Sheryl Resner Bridgette Justis FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR Mission | 503-363-0445 Liberty | 503-581-8580 Keizer | 503-304-8641 Sublimity | 503-769-3180 Michael Wooters Garry Falor Mario Montiel Tim Yount FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR South | 503-362-5439 West | 503-588-5426 Keizer | 503-393-8166 Silverton | 503-873-2454 Caitlin Davis Chip Hutchings Walt Walker FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR West | 503-585-1464 Lancaster | 503-585-4689 FINANCIAL ADVISOR Stayton | 503-769-4902 OR-0000392982 Tim Sparks Kelly Denney FINANCIAL ADVISOR Commercial | 503-370-6159 FINANCIAL ADVISOR Dallas | 503-623-2146 parking lots open to it, at building owners’ discre- tion. The bans are designed to cut down on scenarios where pedestrians have to walk through smoke while shopping downtown or recreating at parks – and also to reduce the number of cigarette butts left behind by smokers. Outside one downtown bar, “the butts are all over the place … I think it’d be great to get rid of that,” resident Barbara Spring- er said at a council meet- ing. How enforceable a smoking ban would be is a question Silverton Police Chief Jeff Fossholm was asked by councilors to ad- dress at future council meetings or work ses- sions. The proposed bans on plastic bags and Styro- foam containers are straightforward. Busi- nesses would no longer be allowed to give customers their purchases in either product, both of which are inexpensive but widely known to resist decompo- sition in landfills. The idea of banning them was brought to the council by the Environ- mental Management Committee, an eight-per- son group. Councilor Da- na Smith leads the com- mittee with Silverton’s public works director; a representative from Sil- PHOTO BY JEREMY MITCHELL This photo of the Whitewater Fire burning in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness was taken before Jefferson Park was closed to hikers and backpackers. near every fire," said George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch. "We need to stop seeing fire as something to fight, especially in Wil- derness, just as we don’t see snowfall, rainfall, or wind as something to fight." Grady McMahan, De- troit district ranger, said the agency decided to fight the Whitewater Fire because it was so early in the year and had the po- tential to grow beyond the wilderness boundaries. "Our goal was to put the fire out while protecting wilderness characteris- tics and private land and structures," he said. "It's a difficult balancing act." Blaze spills over a cliff By the evening of July 24, officials knew the fire wouldn't go quietly. High winds threw em- bers half a mile, starting spot fires in a forest that was bone dry. The fire grew from 50 to 80 acres, crossing the Whitewater Trail and threatening pop- ular Jefferson Park, where backpackers re- mained. But firefighters who hiked 4 miles into the wil- derness, amid boiling temperatures, made pro- gress on the fire. They built hand lines and kept the blaze limited to 80 acres by July 27. “Hard work pays off,” said a press release from the fire. “The difficult, dirty and dangerous work by firefighters on the Whitewater Fire is start- ing to pay dividends.” The problem was the terrain. Sentinel Hills, where the fire started, sits atop steep cliffs. Late that week, winds kicked up and the fire spilled down- hill, with flaming trees and boulders crashing into the Whitewater verton’s waste contractor, Republic Services; and five citizens, including a high school student. “It was a really good process, sitting back and evaluating where we were as a city in regard to environmental issues,” Smith said. Last year, the commit- tee helped kick start a res- idential food composting program, and it’s now ex- ploring an expanded pro- gram with commercial food waste, she said. It’s also initiated a new part- nership with Silverton High School students, some of whom already test Silver Creek’s water quality, to share data about the pollution caused by water runoff from city streets. As for plastic and Sty- rofoam, some food estab- lishments have requested a transition period, during which they can use up their bags and boxes be- fore switching to more en- vironmentally friendly products, Smith said. Of the 1,108 households that responded to the 2016 community survey, ma- jorities favored taking ac- tion on all four issues now being considered by the council. Support for bans on smoking in parks and on downtown sidewalks came in at 73 and 70 per- cent, respectively. Fifty- nine percent said they’d support a ban on retailers’ use of plastic bags, while 66 percent said they’d support a ban on food- grade Styrofoam at gro- cery stores and restau- rants. Creek valley. The fire roared down the cliffs and then burned back up it. Hot shot crews ana- lyzed stopping the fire as it spread downhill, but the danger was too high. “Once it spilled over the cliff, there was really no way of stopping it with- out a high risk of injury or death to the firefighters,” Beck said. Search and Rescue teams were sent to evacu- ate backpackers from Jefferson Park as the fire spread to 167 acres July 30. "You could feel the heat coming off the fire and see ash all over the snow- fields at Jefferson Park — it looked like someone took a pepper shaker onto Mount Jefferson," said Jeremy Mitchell, a volun- teer search and rescue team member. "We proba- bly evacuated 25 people. I was surprised how many people were still there." The next day, Jeffer- son Park and all surround- ing trails were officially closed. "That ended up being a really good call," Mitchell said. Wind and heat fuel flames At the same time the fire was spreading, weather conditions went from bad to catastrophic. The fire stayed around 167 acres for two days be- fore growing to around 297 acres. Then it blew up. Fueled by high winds and temperatures in the 100s, the fire expanded fivefold to 1,500 acres and then to 4,579 acres by Aug. 3. Smoke and ash rained down on nearby Detroit as the fire spread within a few miles of State High- way 22. “Record-setting heat, rugged terrain and top of the fire season — it doesn’t get any worse,” said Steve Zeil, fire be- havior analyst for the in- cident team during a meeting in Detroit. “All the ingredients for extreme fire behavior (were) present.” Fire teams stopped en- gaging the fire in the wil- derness and instead fo- cused on building contain- ment lines on Forest Ser- vice Roads outside the wilderness. As the fire spread be- yond wilderness bound- aries, the broad goal was to stop the fire from reaching highways, Mar- ion Forks and the Breiten- bush Community. No evacuations were ever ordered, and the fire has remained 3 to 6 miles from the small towns. Going forward The fire has slowed its spread in recent days, growing a limited amount as weather conditions im- proved. Fire teams are now tak- ing a more proactive ap- proach, using controlled fire on containment lines to starve the blaze of the fuel it would need to grow. With rain in the fore- cast, there's hope fire ac- tivity will tamp down enough to stop smoke from obscuring the sky during eclipse day. Still, no matter how much the fire improves, Forest Service officials aren't considering re- opening Jefferson Park for the big day. "One little rainstorm might slow it down, but it will still be a large, active fire that has behaved er- ratically this entire time," McMahan said. "I couldn't sleep at night knowing there were a hundred or a thousand people near a fire that with one strong gust of wind could turn things sideways in a mo- ment." P.O. Box 13009 Salem, OR 97309 Address P.O. 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