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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 2018)
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2018 146TH YEAR, NO. 47 ONE DOLLAR Driven by climate change, fire reshapes the landscape Forest policy, development influence fires By MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press Heartprint Productions Chad and Toniann Churches with their son, Cyrus. Coast Guard couple inspired during son’s leukemia treatment Six months of chemotherapy By JACK HEFFERNAN The Daily Astorian T he Churches had mixed emo- tions when their first child, Cyrus, was born last year. During Toniann Churches’ preg- nancy, they threw a gender reveal party. The family has a lot of girls, so they were excited to find out they were having a boy. Still, it was some- thing new, and the Astoria couple’s imagination ran wild whenever they held their newborn son. “You start to re-evaluate your future, get a little excited and a lit- tle nervous,” Chad Churches said. “You just start to dream. It, like, reignites your imagination, like, what are they going to be like when they grow up?” That dream took a frightening turn about four months later when Cyrus was diagnosed with leuke- mia, prompting months of rigor- ous treatment and unusual living arrangements. For six energy-drain- ing months, the new parents relied on the inspiration offered by their son, as well as some help from their Coast Guard peers. ‘Hoping it was wrong’ As the Churches held their baby BILLINGS, Mont. — Wildfires have charred more than 10,000 square miles so far this year, an area larger than the state of Maryland, with large fires still burning in every Western state, includ- ing many that are not fully contained. Whether sparked by light- ning or humans, fire has long been a force shaping the landscape of the West. Hot, dry winds can whip flames into firestorms that leave behind charred waste- lands prone to erosion and mudslides. Other fires clear out underbrush, open the for- est floor to sunlight and stim- ulate growth. Government agencies in recent decades effec- tively upended that cycle of destruction and rebirth. Fire suppression policies allowed fuels to build up in many Western forests, mak- ing them more susceptible to major fires. Those influences are magnified as development creeps ever deeper into for- ests and climate change brings hotter temperatures. Recent images of subdivi- sions ablaze thrust the power and ecological role of wild- fires into the spotlight. A look at the environmen- tal effects of wildfires: Smoke and ruin Coast Guard The Coast Guard stepped up to help one of its own. son, they noticed something differ- ent. He had a low-grade fever for more than a week, his stomach was pale and he was crying more than usual. “Even when you held him and stuff, he would just sit there and be really uncomfortable,” Chad Churches said. The Churches took Cyrus in for a blood test. They imagined a num- ber of scenarios, but the true cause of their son’s pain shocked them. “I was kind of upset just because I was hoping it was wrong,” Toni- ann Churches said. “Other people’s kids get leukemia. Not yours.” Cyrus and his parents spent most of the next six months at Doernbe- cher Children’s Hospital in Port- land. Stuck in a new environ- ment as the disease progressed, the first month was the hardest, Chad Churches recalls. “It was just constantly finding out worse information as it pro- gressed,” he said. As Cyrus struggled to sleep while repeatedly vomiting, his par- ents took turns resting near him. Most immediately fire brings destruction. Temperatures from extreme fires can top 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to kill all plant life, incinerate seeds hid- den beneath the surface and bake the soil until it becomes impervious to rain. The lifeless landscape becomes prone to severe ero- sion, fouling streams and riv- ers with silt that kills fish and other aquatic life. Torrents of muddy debris following fires last year in Southern Cali- fornia killed 21 people and destroyed 129 homes. U.S. Geological Survey scientists say the problem is getting worse as the area burned annually by wild- fires increases. A study last year concluded sediment from erosion following fires would more than double by 2050 for about a third of western watersheds. Smoke from this sum- mer’s Western wildfires — a potential health haz- ard for at-risk individuals — prompted the closure of Yosemite National Park for more than two weeks and drifted to the East Coast , according to NASA. Recent research says it also impacts climate change as small par- ticles spiral into the upper atmosphere and interfere with the sun’s rays. Climate questions Scientists broadly agree wildfires are getting bigger in North America and other parts of the world as the cli- mate warms. But still emerg- ing is how that change will alter the natural progression of fire and regrowth. The time interval between wildfires in some locations is getting shorter, even as there’s less moisture to help trees regrow. That means some forests burn, then never grow back, convert- ing instead into shrub land more adapted to frequent fire, said Jonathan Thompson, a senior ecologist at Harvard University. “They get stuck in this trap of repeated, high-se- verity fire,” Thompson said. “Through time we’ll see the California shrub land shift- ing north.” Similar shifts are being observed in Colorado, Wyo- ming’s Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park in Montana, he said. See FIRES, Page 7A See COAST GUARD, Page 7A ‘IT WAS OUR TOP PRIORITY TO HELP THAT FAMILY. IT WAS TOUGH BECAUSE THEY JUST WANTED THEIR SON TO BE BETTER.’ Lauren Walton | chief petty officer at Coast Guard Air Station Astoria AP Photo/Eric Risberg Standing rainwater pools where a Fountaingrove neighborhood home once stood before a wildfire in Santa Rosa, Calif. Why did Mount St. Helens form to the west? New research paper by Oregon State published By KRISTIAN FODEN-VENCIL Oregon Public Broadcasting For years, scientists have wondered why Mount St. Helens is out of line with other volcanoes on the Pacific Northwest’s Ring of Fire. Oregon State University scientists think they now have the answer. Oregon State geophysicist Adam Schultz and his team think a giant subsurface rock formation, about 25 miles in diameter, diverted magma and melted rock off the Ring of Fire’s arc. That formation, known as the Spirit Lake batholith, pushed the magma westward. “It seems like what we call the Spirit Lake batholith is probably the reason why Mount St. Helens actually pops up far to the west of where you would anticipate it to be,” Schultz said. Older imaging studies show the structure, density and temperature of what’s under the mountain, and more recent use of magneto- telluric measurements — which show the Earth’s subsurface electrical conductivity — reveal fluids like magma. The Oregon State team said it layered the two types of images together and created a much clearer picture of what lies below. It’s being published this week in the journal “Nature Geoscience.” Oregon State University See MOUNT ST. HELENS, Page 7A Mount St. Helens is several miles west of where it might be ex- pected to be when looking at the Ring of Fire.