12 CapitalPress.com
August 21, 2015
Wildfi res
Fires in the Pacifi c Northwest are getting top priority
FIRE from Page 1
Koshare Eagle, of the National
Interagency Fire Center, said the
center prioritizes fi res based fi rst
on threats to public safety, fol-
lowed by threats to communities
and infrastructure. Numerous fi res
meet those criteria, Eagle said, but
because resources were so thin on
Aug. 18 they had 60 orders for hot-
shot crews that have gone unfi lled.
The fi res in the Pacifi c North-
west are getting top priority when
it comes to allocating pinched re-
sources.
A lightning-sparked fi re in
Oregon’s Malheur National For-
est, the Canyon Complex fi re,
has grown to 63 square miles
and destroyed at least 36 houses.
An additional 500 structures are
threatened by the fl ames, as are
the communities of Canyon City
and John Day.
On Aug. 18, federal offi cials
made the fi re their top priority.
In the Northern Rockies, so
many wildfi res have ignited this
month that offi cials are letting
some that might be suppressed
under normal circumstances burn
because manpower and equip-
ment are committed elsewhere.
The area experienced a normal
fi re season until last week, when a
combination of drought, high tem-
peratures and lightning-packed
storms created new blazes across
western Montana and Idaho.
The Soda fi re, burning in
southwest Idaho and southeast
Oregon, had by Aug. 19 burned
more than 283,000 acres.
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Helicopter with a tube for sucking
water out of the lake or river takes
off Aug. 17 from Chelan Airport.
Large Western U.S. wildfires *
(As of Aug. 19)
Wildfire data change rapidly. For the most up-to-date information, go to: activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/#
Size
Fire
1. Nickowitz
2. Route Com.
3. Collier Butte
4. Gasquet Com.
5. Humboldt Com.
6. River Com.
7. Stouts Cr.
8. Mad River Com.
9. Fork Com.
10. Cable Crossing
11. Jerusalem
12. South Com.
13. National Cr. Com.
14. Blankenship
15. County Line 2
16. Cougar Cr.
17. Thursday Cr.
18. Wolverine
19. Cuesta
20. First Cr.
21. McFarland Cr.
22. Dodge
23. Black Canyon
24. Okanogan Com.
25. Reach
26. Walker
27. Canyon Cr. Com.
28. North Star
29. Roy
30. Rough
31. Carpenter Rd.
32. Stickpin
33. Warm
34. El Dorado
35. Phillips Cr.
36. Marble Valley
37. Bendire Com.
38. Cabin
39. Cold Springs
40. Rutter Canyon
41. Tower
42. Eagle
43. Horno
44. Cornet-Windy Ridge
45. Sawtooth
46. Scotchman Peak
47. Soda
48. Mann
49. Big Lost
50. Elk City Com.
0-75 percent
contained
(Acres)
3,331
33,962
8,000
6,426
4,883
43,144
25,076
24,981
35,097
1,857
25,118
22,037
6,228
180
62,000
23,100
200
40,470
2,500
1,731
4,708
10,570
6,671
30,927
69,445
3,715
43,738
35,000
120
24,200
6,786
37,317
300
20,601
2,601
3,100
44,397
1,723
4,012
155
7,743
2,518
1,846
103,540
100
2,400
283,686
1,356
1,280
520
76-100 percent
contained
Idaho and Oregon
ranchers fi ghting one
of nation’s largest
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
14
MONT.
16 WASH.
79
13
ORE.
27 34
37
3
IDAHO
47
22
12
8
NEV.
11 CALIF.
39
UTAH
26
30
N
19
*100
100 acres or more
occurring in timber;
300 acres or more
in grass/sage.
78
43
Size
Fire (cont.)
(Acres)
51. Rapid
52. Parker Ridge
53. Baldy
54. Not Creative
55. Clearwater Com.
56. Napoleon 1
57. Tepee Springs
58. West Scriver
59. Municipal
60. Clark Fork Com.
61. Cougar
62. Marble Cr.
63. Grizzly Cr. Com.
64. Slide
65. Campbells
1,402
6,147
515
135
72,150
2,160
5,080
607
1,872
2,850
591
1,024
694
1,000
2,200
Sources: activefiremaps.fs.fed.us; inciweb.org
Size
Fire (cont.)
(Acres)
66. Snow Peak Com.
125
67. Weigel
100
68. N.E. Kootenai Com.
2,265
69. Red River Com.
300
70. Melton 1
3,303
71. Bobcat
315
72. Thompson Divide Com. 13,932
73. Scotchmans Gulch
186
74. Morrell Com.
384
75. Flat Cr.
200
76. Sucker Cr.
2,640
77. Cabin Cr.
1,895
78. Rattlesnake
4,000
79. Eustis
8,721
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
HOMEDALE, Idaho —
Dozens of ranchers in South-
western Idaho and Eastern
Oregon are helping battle one
of the nation’s largest wild-
fi res.
In many cases, they’re
fi ghting to defend their own
livelihoods.
The wind-driven Soda
fi re had burned more than
283,000 acres as of Aug. 19
and was spreading rapidly,
driven by high winds, tem-
peratures above 100 degrees
and low humidity.
It’s burning mainly in
Owyhee County but jumped
across the Oregon border Aug.
12, where it has scorched
more than 25,000 acres.
The fi re has destroyed
tens of thousands of acres of
grazing land and is threaten-
ing ranches that are scattered
throughout the region.
Rancher Tim Macken-
zie, who runs cattle from
Homedale to Jordan Valley,
Ore., said the fi re has de-
stroyed all of his spring range
and it has destroyed all of the
spring and summer range of
eight other ranchers he knows.
He’s one of about 50
ranchers from two Rangeland
Fire Protection Associations
— one in Oregon and one
in Idaho — who are helping
fi ght the fi re.
“It’s had a huge impact on
me,” Mackenzie said. “It’s the
worst one I’ve seen in my life-
time.”
The fi re started close to
Paul Nettleton’s ranch near
Murphy but he has escaped
unharmed so far because
winds drove it away from his
Wildfi re claims apple packing plant
Estimated
$50 million to
$80 million loss
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
CHELAN, Wash. — A
major Washington tree fruit
packer, Chelan Fruit Cooper-
ative, lost one of its two main
plants and the other was dam-
aged in fi res that destroyed
other businesses and 50 to 75
residences at Lake Chelan.
“It’s quite a disaster,” said
Reggie Collins, the co-op’s
general manager. He estimat-
ed the co-op’s facilities losses
at $50 million to $80 million.
Chelan Fruit Cooperative’s
Plant No. 1, also known as the
Trout plant, had a pre-size line
and two apple packing lines.
It had capacity for 120,000 to
130,000 bins of storage, most-
ly controlled atmosphere. It
was destroyed along with
about 150,000 empty bins,
Collins said.
The adjacent plant No. 2,
also known as Blue Chelan
dating to before the late 1990s
merger of Blue Chelan and
Trout, received smoke dam-
age and cosmetic burns but
will be operational within a
few days, Collins said.
“Plant No. 1 is an 18 to
24-month rebuilding project.
It will have to have all new
(packing) lines. Concrete
walls that are not fallen in will
have to be pushed down and
we’ll have to start from the
ground up,” Collins said.
He said he hopes insur-
ance covers losses, but that
the plant will be rebuilt “one
way or another.”
With apple and pear
harvest just starting, Chel-
an Fruit will make up for
the loss of No. 1 by run-
ning more volume and night
shifts throughout the year at
No. 2 and its plants in Bee-
be, Orondo and Pateros, Col-
lins said.
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Apples spill from bins outside Chelan Fruit Cooperative’s packing
plant No. 1, which was burned in a wildfi re.
It has additional storage
in Okanogan and Omak, but
will need bins, storage and
packing assistance.
“We will have to have
outside help. We will be
asking for and finding help.
It’s a tight industry and even
though we’re all competi-
tors, we’re all friends when
a disaster hits,” he said.
That might be limited, he
said, because the industry
already is sharing resourc-
es to help Blue Bird Inc.
and Stemilt Growers LLC,
which lost packing lines to
the Sleepy Hollow Fire in
Wenatchee on June 28.
But Gebbers Farms in
Brewster, Manson Fruit Co-
operative in Manson, and
Stemilt, Columbia Fruit and
McDougall & Sons, all in
Wenatchee, have said they
will put together a plan of
how much fruit they can
pack and when, Collins said.
“I’m pretty confident that
between all those guys we
will have a plan to take care
of our fruit without any loss-
es to our growers,” he said.
Chelan Fruit estimates
packing 6.5 million to 7
million boxes of apples and
pears from the 2015 crop.
That’s down from 8 million
last season because its a
smaller crop and because of
“devastating hail in multiple
areas,” Collins said.
Chelan Fruit will do ev-
erything to keep its employ-
ees from plant No. 1 working
at its other facilities, he said.
Crop loss to the co-op’s
growers is minimal as fires
tend to singe edges of or-
chard but not burn them,
Collins said. However, he
said, he lost 20 acres of his
own orchard and deer fenc-
ing. His sister lost her brand
new house and his house and
his sons’ were smoke dam-
aged.
Ranchers, USDA spar over forest management
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
As wildfi res rage throughout
the West, two ranchers’ groups
are engaging in fi nger-pointing
with federal offi cials over what
the cattlemen call the “gross”
mismanagement of forests and
rangelands.
In an Aug. 17 letter, National
Cattlemen’s Beef Association
and Public Lands Council of-
fi cials urged President Barack
Obama to “streamline regula-
tions that will allow for active
management” of federal lands
and stop closed-door settlements
with environmental groups that
seek to block such efforts.
Further, NCBA president
Philip Ellis and PLC president
Brenda Richards voiced support
for legislation that would re-
quire the Forest Service to treat
at least 2 million acres a year
through mechanical thinning or
prescribed burns.
But Robert Bonnie, the
USDA’s under secretary for re-
sources and environment, coun-
tered the groups should instead
support a wildfi re funding bill
by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Ida-
ho, which has widespread bipar-
tisan backing and is similar to
language in Obama’s proposed
budget.
Simpson’s Wildfi re Disaster
Funding Act would treat cata-
strophic wildfi res the same as
other disasters when it comes to
funding and end the practice of
“fi re borrowing,” in which the
U.S. Forest Service has to raid
its management coffers when it
exceeds its budget for fi refi ght-
ing.
The bill “would not only stop
fi re transfers but would provide
the agency with additional re-
sources to restore forests,” Bon-
nie told the Capital Press in an
email. “As a result, this proposal
would increase restored acres
by one million annually, with an
output of 300 million board feet
of timber sold.”
The NCBA and PLC are
promoting the Resilient Federal
Forests Act by Rep. Bruce Wes-
terman, R-Ark., which passed
the House of Representatives by
a 262-167 vote in July. A similar
bill by U.S. Sen. John Barras-
so, R-Wyo., had a hearing last
month in the upper chamber’s
Energy and Natural Resources
Committee.
“Despite the increasing ev-
idence that mismanagement of
forests and rangeland is to blame
for the higher occurrence of cat-
astrophic wildfi res, Washington
seems to believe that allocating
more money to fi re suppression
is the answer,” Ellis and Rich-
ards told Obama in the letter.
“We encourage you to work
with the ranching communities
across the West to ensure lands
are actively managed and there-
by reducing future catastrophic
fi re and reduce the ever-ex-
panding fi re costs impacting the
agencies,” they wrote.
However, Bonnie respond-
ed the Republicans’ bill fails to
address the ever-increasing por-
tion of the budget devoted to fi re
suppression, which limits mon-
ey to restore and manage forests.
As it is, the Forest Service
has actually increased acres re-
stored since 2008, producing
18 percent more timber, USDA
offi cials said. In 2014, the agency
treated 2.7 million acres to restore
forest health and reduced hazard-
ous fuels on another 1.5 million
while exceeding its targets in
planned timber sales and steward-
ship contracts, offi cials said.
The competing bills come
as about 95 large wildfi res are
burning 1.1 million acres in the
West. For the fi rst time, the U.S.
Forest Service expects to spend
more than half its budget — 52
percent — on fi re suppression
this year, further squeezing for-
est restoration, watershed and
landscape management pro-
grams, according to an agency
report.
In fi scal 1995, the Forest
Service spent 16 percent of its
budget on fi refi ghting, but fi re
expenditures could balloon to as
much as two-thirds of the Forest
Service’s budget within the next
decade, the agency believes.
The PLC’s Richards, a Reyn-
olds Creek, Idaho rancher who
recently suffered property dam-
age as the Soda Fire in south-
western Idaho and southeast-
ern Oregon consumed roughly
300,000 acres of rangeland, said
the mismanagement of federal
lands has created the need for
such expenditures and caused
economic hardship and danger
for ranchers.
“The livestock industry and
rural economies will spend
decades attempting to recov-
er from the millions of dollars’
worth of infrastructure damage
and forage loss” from fi res,
Richards said in a statement.
The bills by Westerman
and Barrasso would ease en-
vironmental requirements for
forest-thinning projects and re-
quire an arbitration process be-
fore anyone could challenge the
projects in court. It would also
prohibit federal agencies from
raiding accounts necessary for
forest and range management.
“It’s tough to say what the
Senate will end up taking up in
September, but we continue to
urge them to take up the bill,”
PLC spokeswoman Shawna
Newsome said in an email.
“With strong support in the
House, we expect to see the
same in the Senate.”
operation.
He said the fi re has been
devastating to some of his
rancher neighbors.
“This fi re is pretty scary,”
Nettleton said. “Not only have
they lost some ground, but
probably a lot of cattle graz-
ing in that area as well.”
BLM offi cials said pro-
tecting lives and property are
their top priorities and after
high winds caused the fi re
to explode the night of Aug.
11, fi refi ghters fell back into
defensive positions to protect
ranches and other structures.
Steve Acarregui, BLM’s
fi re cooperative coordinator
in Boise, said the volunteer
RFPAs, which consist almost
entirely of ranchers, have
proven helpful in fi ghting the
Soda fi re.
“The (RFPA) program has
exceeded my expectations,”
he said about the groups’ ef-
forts on this and other fi res.
“It’s been going really well.”
Acarregui spent part of the
last three days with the RF-
PAs as they conducted burn-
out operations and suppressed
direct fi re lines with fi re en-
gines and bulldozers.
“They have a vested inter-
est in protecting the forage on
federal land where they have
grazing permits,” he said.
“They want to keep that fi re
as small as possible to protect
as much of that forage as pos-
sible for grazing. It’s a good
deal for them ... and for tax-
payers.”
BLM offi cials said much
of the area where the fi re is
burning is considered primary
sage grouse habitat.
The fi re was likely caused
by an Aug. 10 lighting strike,
BLM offi cials said.
Chelan FFA
adviser
loses home
to wildfi re
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
FFA adviser Rod Cool and
his family are among the doz-
ens of people who lost their
homes to the massive wildfi re
that burned through the Chel-
an, Wash., area.
Cool lost his home and
outbuildings Aug. 14. He’s
not sure about the cost to re-
place it all, but said he has
good insurance. He planned
to begin the rebuilding pro-
cess this week.
Cool and his family were
evacuating when the fi re hit.
“I drove by the driveway
and the trees were on fi re in
the yard, that’s how close it
was,” Cool said. “The fi re re-
ally came fast.”
Fire surrounded the home,
but wasn’t moving, Cool said.
He got some FFA pigs
he was keeping for students
loaded, but ran out of time and
three were lost to the fi re, he
said. The remaining animals
have been moved to other lo-
cations in the school district,
he said.
Cool says that as an ag-
riculture teacher he teach-
es about “defensible space”
around houses to guard
against wildfi res.
“Sometimes, fi re behavior,
especially in a year like this,
you almost have to double
what you think is safe,” he
said. “I had 100 feet of bare
ground all around my house,
and it still burned down.”
Several of Cool’s neigh-
bors also lost their homes, but
others were untouched.
“It’s just a weird deal,
hit and miss, on how houses
started on fi re and which ones
started fi rst,” he said.
Cool and his family are
living in town with his moth-
er. He hopes his insurance
will provide a rental place un-
til they can get back into their
home. Daughter Sammi Jo
Sims said she is in the process
of moving to Moscow, Idaho,
for college but was storing
gifts from her July wedding at
her parents’ home.