Appeal Tribune Wednesday, December 20, 2017 3A
Fire
Continued from Page 2A
Whitewater drainage,” wrote Dave
Johnson, incident commander of the
Whitewater Fire.
“This was deemed unsafe due to
steepness, crumbly mountain hemlock
snags and potential for rolling material
to be very high,” Johnson wrote. “At this
point, all we could do is hold what pro-
gress was made and work with helicop-
ters to slow progression.”
The next day, July 28, fire teams
"abandoned the east side entirely," John-
son wrote, essentially letting it burn into
the wilderness.
The goal changed from putting the
fire out to stopping it from advancing
west toward State Highway 22 and pri-
vate timberlands, while checking it on
the north and east with helicopters
drops, documents show.
Search and Rescue teams were sent to
evacuate backpackers from Jefferson
Park, a popular backcountry camping
area, as the fire spread to 167 acres July
30. At this point, 127 people were as-
signed to the fire.
August 1-10
Fueled by high winds and temper-
atures in the 100s, the fire expanded five-
fold 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 Highway 22 and crossed
outside of the wilderness boundary.
“Record-setting heat, rugged terrain
and top of the fire season — it doesn’t get
any worse,” said Steve Zeil, fire behavior
analyst for the incident team during a
meeting in Detroit.
Fire teams stopped engaging the fire
in the wilderness and instead focused on
building containment lines on Forest
Service Roads outside the wilderness.
The fire would end up burning 11,500
acres.
Did the Forest Service know
about the Whitewater Fire
before July 23?
One of the most frequent accusations
against the Forest Service is that offi-
cials knew about the lightning-struck
“smoldering tree,” that would ignite the
Whitewater Fire, far earlier than July 23.
Here’s some background:
On the evening of June 25, a thunder-
storm rolled across the Central Cascade
Range and raked the forest with more
than 100 lightning strikes.
The storm immediately sparked 12
different wildfires on Willamette Na-
tional Forest. Conditions were still wet
and the blazes were quickly doused.
The Forest Service continued to mon-
itor the forest for any smoke because
lightning often sparks fires weeks or
months after the original strike.
They knew the general location of the
lightning strikes, "but it's impossible to
know which ones might develop into a
fire," Willamette National Forest fire in-
vestigator Dirk Rogers said.
Documents show six other wildfires,
including some in wilderness areas, pop-
ping up in late July near Detroit, all of
which were extinguished by fire teams
before they grew larger than one acre.
There is no documentation of the
Whitewater Fire, or smoke or flames
near Whitewater Trail, before July 23,
according to reports and emails re-
viewed by the Statesman Journal.
Every Whitewater Fire report docu-
ments July 23 as the first day the Forest
Service became aware of the fire.
McMahan said the confusion was like-
ly caused by a briefing he gave in late
July to landowners around the Mount
Jefferson Wilderness. He told landown-
ers about the small fires started by the
June 25 lightning storm and updated
them on the status of the growing White-
water Fire.
McMahan said he regrets that he did
not make it clear that the Whitewater
Fire, while caused by a lightning strike
in June, was not visible or located until
July 23.
"The lightning strike tree was within
easy sight distance from the Whitewater
Trail," he said. "That trail receives heavy
hiking use. If there was a visible fire
there from June into July, a number of
hikers would have reported a fire."
Did the Forest Service 'sit on the
sidelines' until the fire was
outside the wilderness?
This claim is another frequent accu-
sation against the Forest Service.
Pictures, reports and eyewitness ac-
counts show the Forest Service and fire
teams fighting the Whitewater Fire
while it was still confined to the Mount
Jefferson Wilderness.
The Whitewater Fire didn't cross out-
side wilderness boundaries until Aug. 3
when it reached around 4,500 acres.
More than 100 firefighters had been
working the fire, both directly and indi-
rectly, for a week and a half.
News releases detailing the progress
of the fire while still in the wilderness
are easily found online.
Did the Forest Service start the
fire to keep people out of the
Mount Jefferson Wilderness due
to concerns about eclipse
crowds?
This accusation mostly popped up on
social media. There is no evidence the
Forest Service intentionally started the
fire. Prior to the fire breaking out, mul-
tiple emails detail the Forest Service
preparing for an influx of people for the
solar eclipse Aug. 21.
In one email, for example, officials
detailed plans to bring wilderness toilets
(called “Luggable Loos”) into Jefferson
Park, while strategizing how to get them
back out once they were full. Other
emails consider overcrowded parking at
trailheads.
There is no evidence the Forest Ser-
vice was planning to keep people out.
How did a month-old lightning
strike stay undetected for a
month before starting a fire?
The Forest Service has consistently
said that a holdover lightning strike,
from the June 25 storm, was responsible
for igniting the Whitewater Fire on July
23.
Fire investigator Dirk Rogers exam-
ined the area on July 25 and discovered a
“strike tree.”
“The general area around the point of
origin was investigated and a lightning
struck tree that had burned over and was
horizontal on the ground was discov-
ered,” Rogers wrote in his report.
In an interview, Rogers said that
when he investigated, he came across a
fallen tree that stood out because it had a
long groove, likely caused by a lightning
strike, that had been burning from the
top downward.
“Fire doesn’t normally burn from the
top down, it burns from the bottom up,”
Rogers said. “The groove in this tree was
sitting upward, not underneath."
Rogers said an ember or spark was
likely smoldering within the groove —
putting out little heat or smoke. Then, the
tree fell down and the fire ignited, he
said.
“That’s actually really common.
Strike trees often won't put out much, if
any, smoke until they get enough oxygen
or fuel to kick it back up,” Rogers said.
“It’s worth noting that that’s exactly
what happened with two other fires in
the same area right around the same
time.”
Could the Whitewater Fire
have been human-caused?
There was one thing missing in Rog-
ers’ report. In sections of the report that
ask the investigator to consider whether
a fire was human caused, Rogers wrote
that there was “no evidence of any hu-
man activity … noted in the area.”
“There is a hiking trail within 200 feet
of the origin area but origin area is not an
ideal place to set up a camp. Better
places are within 1/4 mile of the origin,”
he wrote.
But Lydia Segura, the 17-year-old who
originally reported the fire, said she dis-
covered an abandoned Kelty tent on the
edge of the flames.
"The tent was set up, the stakes were
down and it was starting to melt from the
heat of the fire," Segura said. "It obvious-
ly had not been slept in and there was
some toilet paper and trash, like beans
and a pile of rice that looked as though
they had been cooked and then dumped
out.
"It was in a really strange spot, on the
Communication between former Forest
Service official Kenny Schade and fire
manager Brandon Coville.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE
side of the hill, and it struck me that it
wouldn't be a place where I'd want to
sleep."
Segura said she picked up the tent and
garbage that was about to burn and
packed it out.
Later, Segura relayed the information
about the campsite to former Forest Ser-
vice official Kenny Schade.
Schade passed that information to
Forest Service district fire management
officer Brandon Coville, documents
show. But the information appears to
have stopped there.
Fire investigator Rogers said he nev-
er got that information. But even if he
had gotten it, Rogers said, it wouldn’t
have changed his opinion about how the
fire started.
“There was no physical evidence that
would lead me to determine it was hu-
man-caused, while on the other hand, we
had a strike tree in the fire origin area,”
Rogers said.
Forest Service officials said once
they had evidence of the lightning-
struck tree conclusion from Rogers,
they moved onto the next stage of tasks.
The 2017 wildfire season was one for
the record books. The 70,000 acres that
burned during three months in Willam-
ette National Forest was more than
burned during the last 20 years com-
bined, officials said.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors
writer, photographer and videographer
in Oregon for 10 years. He can be reached
at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or
(503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at
@ZachsORoutdoors.
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