YOUR HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER SINCE 1937
Illinois Valley News
Wednesday, September 13, 2017, 1 Section, Volume LXXX No. 25
$1.00
Published weekly for the residents of the Illinois Valley
Champions that lost
County to
hold ‘Weekly
Business
Session’ in
C.J. tonight
Sept. 13, 2017, 5: 30 p.m. Cave Junction City Hall, 222
Lister Street, Cave Junction.
If special physical or language accommodations are need-
ed for this public session, please notify the commissioners’ of-
fice at 541-474-5221, but normally they need at least 48-hours
prior to session. TDD (Hearing-Impaired) 1- 800-735-2900.
Sheriff’s Office nabs
2 pot thieves
(Courtesy photo from Lisa Sherier for the Illinois Valley News)
Monday, Sept. 4 the Labor Day Softball Tournament’s first place champions R.I.P. sponsored by
Annie Pinois (center) in memory of her son and husband. The players from R.I.P. are from Cave
Junction, Grants Pass and Medford.
Shifting seasons; shifting
strategies on the Checto
“ ... But what is unusual is when a column starts up
at 3 a.m. in the morning! And that happened!”
Karen Ripley, U.S. Forest Service
Annette McGee Rasch
IVN Senior Contributing Writer
You know you’re on the West Coast when rain
dances are all the rage! But say what you will - everyone
was thrilled when rain and cooler temperatures came
along last Sept. 7 and tamped down the two-month old
Chetco Bar Fire.
And now, with summer turning to fall, strategy
on the fire lines seems to be shifting as well. When
conditions were hot and dry - with the fire growing at
uncomfortable rates - burn out operations: the strategy
of setting fire ahead of an advancing wildfire to deprive
it of fuel as it comes closer to the fire lines to protect
communities seemed almost inevitable.
“Now, we’re getting closer to mid-October, when
we typically see a fire-season ending rain event,” said
East Zone public information officer Karen Ripley. “The
wildfire is still miles away, and we won’t add fire to
the landscape until the wildfire approaches - and if the
weather moderates, we may not have to. The final fire
footprint would be smaller.
“Our priorities are to connect the old Biscuit fire
lines until we have a secure containment perimeter,”
Ripley said. “As time continues, and as work continues
on the fire lines, if fire approaches, then we can more
safely and strategically meet it with direct fires lines
tight up against the fire. And, where fire has approached,
we look for natural barriers we can tie into. This also
helps reduce the size of potential burn out operations.”
Typically, each night, relative humidity levels rise
and fire behaviors drop - but during some periods when
the Chetco fire had blown up, there was no overnight
recovery. Temperatures stayed higher and humidity
levels stayed low at night, so the fire continued to burn
on a 24-hour cycle.
“And that is very very unusual,” Ripley said. “Fires
subside at night. And then you see fire columns develop
in the afternoon. During the height of the heat wave, this
fire spouted 20,000 foot columns of smoke, which isn’t
unusual. But what is unusual is when a column starts up
at 3 a.m. in the morning! And that happened!”
Ripley went on to explain that “as we move
into the fall this won’t happen anymore. Day lengths
are shorter and overnight humidity recovery is well
established. Every day we get closer to mid-October,
where we’ll get a fire season ending event.”
Meteorologists have also noted unusual aspects of
this fire season, for example, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 4,
the relative humidity never got above 36 percent.
“That’s perhaps the driest period on the fire - that’s
five 24-hour periods of extreme record level dryness,”
said Shad Keene, National Oceanic Atmospheric
Association meteorologist. “To anyone who has lived in
the region for a while, obviously, the seasonal dryness
is not unusual. But it’s the magnitude and duration of
dryness is what’s uncommon.”
“Especially the southern part of the state, we get
a thermal trough pattern, with the offshore northeast
winds, and that brings the hot dry winds rolling off the
lands,” Keene explained. “And on the Chetco fire, this
weather trend was enhanced by the Chetco effect, where
hot dry winds from the Kalmiopsis blow down the
Chetco river canyon toward the ocean.”
Meteorologists and fire behavior analysts say this
was a big factor in the Checto fire becoming such a
large fire.
“Since the initial the blow up that occurred that
second week of August, thankfully we’ve only had a
few Checto-effect events, so the town was sort of braced
for those, and during those times the air quality was
unlike anything I’d ever experienced,” said Brookings
fishing guide Mark Sherwood, “On those days, the
smoke was so think, you’d find yourself holding your
breath, very unusual.”
Natalie M. Wetenhall focuses on new
genre of cannabis business law
STORY ON A-5
According to a press release from Josephine County
Sheriff’s Office (JOCO) Donald Leiter and Trevor Landers
were arrested for robbery I, theft I, burglary II and criminal
mischief I in connection to a marijuana grow theft.
Around 4:30 a.m. Sept. 11, two male subjects cut a fence
located in the 1000 block of Applegate Avenue in rural Grants
Pass, to gain entry to the property, then broke into a large metal
building containing marijuana. The men filled two large leaf
bags full of processed marijuana and then left on foot.
On-site security was alerted and when they responded
they found the men on the west bank of the Rogue River.
After a brief confrontation, one of the males threatened
an employee with a firearm and then both subjects crossed
the river escaping to the north bank. The Josephine County
Sheriff’s Office conducted an extensive search with assistance
from the Oregon State Police, Bureau of Land Management and
Forest Service Deputies, the release stated.
The initial search recovered evidence and possible
direction of travel. The subjects appeared split up to avoid
capture the release stated.
Due to multiple deputies and resources in the area, both
were located and arrested after tips were received from the
community about suspicious males walking in the area. Donald
Leiter was arrested walking south on Leonard Road and Trevor
Landers was arrested walking south on Lower River Road.
Pickett West people’s
forum and protest
Jason McMillen
IVN Contributing Writer
The massive and hastily assembled Pickett West Timber
Sale’s first auction, which will be held at the Grants Pass
Interagency Office Sept. 14 at 9 a.m. will result in the potential
logging of 287 acres of old-growth forest, a classification of
forest that’s particularly important to environmental activists
because of its ecological importance and resistance to fire.
Generally speaking, and according to Oregon Wild, sections of
forests have to be untouched by any major unnatural changes
for more than 100 years to be considered old-growth.
The Pickett West Timber Sale, according to KS Wild’s
program director Tim Ream, is a low elevation timber harvest
that is located very close and throughout several communities,
most especially in the Illinois Valley and Applegate area. “It
goes through and it looks for many of the last best places,
on public land, where old growth forests have not been cut,”
Ream said. The series of auctions can result in the logging of
thousands of acres both young and old but he could not say
with certainty the exact amount. However, Ream held that
roughly half of the timber stands up for auction range from 160
to 240 years old, well within the minimum age requirements to
be considered old growth.
KS Wild, the Deer Creek Association and the Applegate
Neighborhood Network recently held a well-attended people’s
forum to discuss ways of raising community awareness about
the upcoming sale as well as to formulate plans of action with
regard to putting pressure on the Bureau of Land Management
(BLM). The three organizations are scheduled to attend a public
protest outside of the auction building on the morning of Sept.
14. Anyone who wants to voice their concerns peacefully is
encouraged to attend.
“This is not something that we’re going to just allow to
happen without putting up a fight,” Ream declared.
SEE SALE ON A-8