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TUESDAY EDITION
July 27, 2021
‘It is
important
to reach
out’
NORTHEAST OREGON WILDFIRES
Leading
the fi ght
against
Bootleg
School district
encouraging those
impacted by movie
to seek assistance
Northeastern Oregon
native Joe Hessel
heads effort to stop
nation’s largest
wildfire
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — La
Grande School District
Superintendent George
Mendoza is worried that
the release of the movie
“Joe Bell,” which opened
in theaters across the
United States on Friday,
July 23, will set back what
for some has been an eight-
year healing process.
This con-
cern is why
Mendoza is
encouraging
students, par-
ents and staff
Mendoza impacted by
the tragic
story the movie tells to
contact the La Grande
School District for help if
they need it.
“I feel that it is
important to reach out,”
Mendoza said.
The fi lm depicts the
story of Jadin Bell, a La
Grande High School soph-
omore who committed sui-
cide in early 2013 after
being bullied because he
was gay. The movie also
tells of how Jadin’s father,
Joe Bell, responded by
starting a walk across the
United States as a tribute
to his son. Bell’s walk
ended tragically on Oct. 9,
2013, when he died after
being struck by a semi-
trailer while walking along
a road in Colorado.
Mendoza said the movie
is a reminder to many in
the community of a great
loss and he expects a
number of people will fi nd
themselves needing love
and support to help them
cope.
The school district
superintendent also said
this is an important time
to refl ect on the full range
of ways “we can sup-
port young people in our
communities.”
Lola Lathrop, the
mother of Jadin Bell and
the wife of Joe Bell, shares
this sentiment.
See, Movie/Page A5
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
Umatilla National Forest/Contributed Photo
The Elbow Creek Fire burns on Friday, July 16, 2021, along the Grande Ronde River in northern Wallowa County. The blaze, which
has burned about 23,000 acres, is the largest in Northeastern Oregon this summer.
‘90-day August’
Officials concerned that fire season, which started much earlier
than usual, will persist throughout summer and even beyond
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — Noel Living-
ston slides the cursor across the
charts on his computer screen, and
what he sees, lurking behind the
zigzagging lines and the multiple
colors, is trouble.
Wildfi re trouble, to be specifi c.
Livingston, who is the fi re
management offi cer for the Wal-
lowa-Whitman National Forest,
focuses on two lines in particular
— a pair of lines for each of six
regions on the forest, ranging from
diff erent types of forests to the
grasslands of Hells Canyon.
One line, rendered appropriately
in bright fl ame red, depicts the
highest daily measurements, from
2010-19 on the Wallowa-Whitman,
of a statistic known as the “energy
release component.”
A computer model considers the
moisture level in wildfi re fuels, as
well as temperature and humidity,
to project how much energy a fi re
would release — in eff ect, how
rapidly fl ames would spread on a
given day.
But it’s the second line, a series
of brown dots, that worries Living-
ston. Because that line represents
current conditions, not those of
past summers.
It tracks the daily energy release
component readings for 2021. And
for most of July, in each of those
six regions, the brown dot line has
been higher on the chart than the
bright red line.
In some cases the brown dot
was higher than the red line has
ever been.
Which is to say, the energy
release component has been
breaking daily records with a regu-
larity that’s frightening for Living-
ston and other fi re managers.
“That’s what’s got us on the
edge of our chairs,” Livingston
said. “We’ve got a long summer
ahead of us.”
With the energy release compo-
nent at record-setting levels, every
fi re has a higher-than-average
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
A bulldozer navigates Sloan Point Road on Thursday, July 22, 2021, while working the
Elbow Creek Fire near Promise.
potential to turn into confl agration
before fi refi ghters arrive, Living-
ston said.
Crews have doused most blazes
on the Wallowa-Whitman relatively
rapidly, with a majority of the 36
blazes this season burning less than
one acre.
But the statistics don’t tell the
entire tale, Livingston said.
“The fi res that we are dealing
with are showing a high resistance
to control,” he said. “We’ve been
successful for the most part, but it’s
taking a lot more resources on ini-
tial attack to do so.”
For instance, Livingston said
some lightning-sparked blazes —
the ignition source for about 80%
of fi res historically on the Wal-
lowa-Whitman — that in a typical
summer would pose no great chal-
lenge for one fi re engine crew are
this year requiring two or three
crews.
Fortunately, Livingston said,
almost all of the Wallowa-Whit-
man’s fi refi ghters are here and
ready to fi ght local fi res, rather
INDEX
Classified ...............B2
Comics ....................B5
Crossword .............B4
Home ......................B1
WEATHER
Horoscope .............B3
Letters ....................A4
Lottery ....................A2
Obituaries ..............A3
THURSDAY
Opinion ..................A4
Records ..................A3
Sports .....................A7
State ........................A6
than assigned to fi res elsewhere in
the state or region.
“We’re where we want to be in
terms of resources on hand,” he
said.
Livingston said the Wal-
lowa-Whitman has also bolstered
its fi refi ghting capability by having
three bulldozers on contract as well
as additional aircraft.
Conditions create what looks
like a ‘90-day August’
The recent record-high energy
release components are disturbing
not only based on the sheer num-
bers, Livingston said, but also the
timing.
Starting in late June, when an
historic heat wave descended on
the Northwest, energy release
components on parts of the Wal-
lowa-Whitman didn’t merely set
daily records — they exceeded
many previous daily highs for
August.
See, Fires/Page A5
Full forecast on the back of B section
Tonight
Wednesday
65 LOW
93/63
Clearing
Mostly sunny
LES SCHWAB EXPANSION UNDERWAY
BAKER CITY — Joe
Hessel remembers when the
Dooley Mountain Fire, which
burned 20,000 acres south of
Baker City over several days,
was a “giant” blaze.
Nowadays he’s coordinating
the eff ort to stem a fi re that
burned more land than that
every day.
For almost two weeks
straight.
This yawning diff erence
between what was typical
early in Hessel’s
career, and what
is commonplace
today, illustrates
his longevity in a
way perhaps more
compelling than
Hessel
a couple of num-
bers can.
Certainly Hessel, who lives
in Baker City and is in his 38th
summer amidst the smoke
and the fl ames, can attest to
the changes time has wrought
when it comes to fi ghting wild-
land fi res in Oregon and across
the West.
The Dooley Mountain Fire,
sparked by lightning in late
July 1989, was at the time the
biggest blaze in Baker County
in several decades.
It was also an abnormally
large fi re by Oregon standards.
But today, the acreage
charred that distant summer
would occupy a scarcely
noticeable corner of the fi re
that has kept Hessel away from
his Baker City home, and his
La Grande offi ce, for almost
two weeks.
Hessel, 54, who is the
Northeast District forester for
the Oregon Department of For-
estry, is one of three incident
commanders for the Bootleg
Fire, a lightning fi re burning in
Klamath and Lake counties in
south-central Oregon.
At 409,611 acres as of
Monday, July 26, it’s the
nation’s biggest blaze, the one
responsible for much of the
smoke that has clogged Baker
Valley at times this month.
The one that has spawned
smoke plumes that look, from
the vantage point of space sat-
ellites, similar to a cataclysmic
volcanic eruption.
Hessel said his experi-
ence on the Bootleg Fire
has led him to ponder, as he
sometimes has over the past
32 years, the days when he
worked on the Dooley Moun-
tain Fire as a fi refi ghter with
the ODF.
“That was one of the fi rst
big fi res I was involved in, and
See, Hessel/Page A5
CONTACT US
541-963-3161
Issue 87
2 sections, 14 pages
La Grande, Oregon
Email story ideas
to news@lagrande
observer.com.
More contact info
on Page 4A.
Online at lagrandeobserver.com