THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THuRSDAY, JANuARY 17, 2019
Shutdown taking toll on wildfire preparations
A7
A dozen senators
say lives are at risk
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — Just
two months after a wildfire
wiped out Paradise, Cali-
fornia, officials are gearing
up for this year’s fire sea-
son and fear the govern-
ment shutdown could make
it even more difficult than
one of the worst in history.
The winter months are
critical for wildfire manag-
ers who use the break from
the flames to prepare for the
next onslaught, but much
of that effort has ground
to a halt on U.S. land
because employees are fur-
loughed. Firefighting train-
ing courses are being can-
celed from Tennessee to
Oregon, piles of dead trees
are untended in federal for-
ests and controlled burns to
thin dry vegetation aren’t
getting done.
Although the furloughs
only affect federal employ-
ees, the collaborative nature
of wildland firefighting
means the pain of the four-
week-long shutdown is hav-
ing a ripple effect — from
firefighters on the ground to
federal contractors and top
managers who control the
firefighting strategy.
State and local crews
who need training classes,
for example, are scrambling
without federal instructors.
Conservation groups that
work with the U.S. Forest
Service to plan wildfire-pre-
vention projects on federal
lands are treading water.
Annual retreats where local,
state and federal firefight-
ing agencies strategize are
being called off.
The fire season starts as
early as March in the south-
eastern United States, and
by April, fires pop up in the
Southwest. Last year’s most
devastating fire leveled the
Northern California town of
Paradise just before Thanks-
giving, leaving just a few
months to prepare between
seasons.
“I think a lot of people
don’t understand that while
there’s not fire going on out
there right now, there’s a lot
of really critical work going
on for the fire season — and
that’s not getting done,” said
Michael DeGrosky, chief of
the Fire Protection Bureau
for the Montana Depart-
ment of Natural Resources
and Conservation.
It’s especially important
with climate change mak-
ing wildfire seasons lon-
ger, deadlier and more
destructive.
DeGrosky was supposed
to be teaching a course this
week for firefighters who
want to qualify for the
command staff of a fire
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
A firefighter battles a blaze in November along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley, Calif.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
Fire retardant is dropped on a burning hillside in Malibu, Calif., in November.
management team. But the
class was canceled with-
out instructors from federal
agencies.
Similar classes were
called off in Oregon and
Tennessee, and others face
the same fate as the shut-
down drags on. President
Donald Trump and con-
gressional Democrats are
Seaside:
City Council
unanimously
agreed to pursue
annexation
Continued from Page A1
Water rates would also be different.
“There are certain costs we can’t predict
one way or another,” Rahl said.
Police service for nonemergencies
would shift from the county sheriff’s
office to the Seaside Police Department.
In December, the city asked property
owners how they would feel if the city
would “go down this path,” Rahl said.
Owners of 35 of the lots responded.
Comments received ranged from, “I think
this is a great idea for all involved!” to,
“I’m not interested in this at all.” Others
sought more information.
“Ultimately, from what we’ve heard so
far, there’s overwhelming support,” Rahl
said. “More than 70 percent have said
they’d be in favor of this.”
The City Council unanimously agreed
to pursue annexation.
“It’s been a goal since I’ve been on the
council,” City Councilor Steve Wright
said. “I think it’s the right thing to do, to
see the unification of the entire area.”
Three public hearings on the annex-
ation are scheduled for the council’s meet-
ings on Jan. 28, Feb. 11 and Feb. 25.
at odds over funding for a
border wall.
A dozen senators from
Oregon, California, New
Mexico, Washington, Col-
orado, Nevada, West Vir-
ginia and Michigan sent a
letter this week to Trump
warning that the shutdown
would put lives at risk this
coming fire season. Classes
necessary for fire incident
managers, smokejumpers
and hotshot crews are in
jeopardy in the near future,
the senators said.
Smokejumpers
para-
chute into remote forests
to battle blazes not inac-
cessible by firefighters on
the ground and hotshot
crews are small groups of
elite firefighters trained to
battle the most ferocious
lames.
The winter is also when
seasonal firefighters apply
for jobs, get the required
drug tests and move to
where they will train and
work. In many cases,
there’s no one to answer the
phone or process the appli-
cations, and some poten-
tial recruits may decide to
work elsewhere to avoid the
hassle.
“Even if the shutdown
ends and we start hiring
people, we will have missed
the cream of the crop,”
DeGrosky said.
The U.S. Forest Ser-
vice said in an email that
the agency was commit-
ted to hiring for tempo-
rary and permanent fire-
fighting positions and
would
continue
criti-
cal training “to the extent
feasible.”
The first session of an
apprenticeship program for
wildland firefighters went
ahead this week, Forest Ser-
vice spokeswoman Katie
O’Connor said.
“The agency is assessing
and prioritizing the activi-
ties we are able to maintain
while in shutdown status.
We are unable to speculate
on specific impacts while
the government shutdown
is ongoing and ever-chang-
ing,” O’Connor said in a
statement.
Conservationists
and
fire managers say there are
other concerns.
Clearing
and
thin-
ning projects and planned
burns on federal land that
could lessen fire dan-
ger by weeding out flam-
mable debris also are
largely on hold in Cali-
fornia, Oregon and else-
where. Private contractors
say they have received let-
ters telling them to stop the
work.
There’s already a back-
log of such projects in fed-
eral forests in Oregon and
Northern California, said
Michael Wheelock, presi-
dent of Grayback, a private
contractor in Grants Pass,
Oregon.
Intentional fires can only
be set in a narrow winter
window before tempera-
tures and humidity falls —
and that is rapidly closing,
Wheelock said.
“Every week that goes
by, it’s going to start
increasing the impact,” he
said.
Joyce McLean, who lost
her and her husband’s home
in Paradise last November,
supports Trump’s push for
a border wall but worries
what will happen if fire-
fighters aren’t prepared for
next time.
“I hope there are no more
forest fires,” said McLean,
74. “I wouldn’t wish that on
nobody.”
Jellyfish: Moon jellyfish do not sting most people
Continued from Page A1
— or by-the-wind sailors that float on
the water’s surface and are propelled
across the ocean thanks to a triangular
sail — blow onto the beach and carpet
the sand. They bleach white in the sun,
send up a briny stink and are munched
upon by foolhardy dogs.
In recent years, the North Coast
has hosted unexpected creatures like
pyrosomes. The little-studied rub-
bery, tube-shaped, semitranslucent col-
onies showed up en masse on beaches
across Oregon, and especially around
Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park, in
2017. More common in warmer waters,
pyrosomes confounded researchers and
clogged up commercial fishing gear.
Oregon researchers continue to study
the role of jellyfish in marine food webs
and their potential impact on coastal
fishing.
Jellyfish may drift gracefully and
dreamily when in water, but on land
they are gelatinous blobs sometimes
spiked with intricate colors. They are
always a fascinating find for beachgoers
and tempting to poke or even pick up.
The Haystack Rock Awareness Pro-
gram noted that moon jellyfish do not
sting most people, but jellies like the
Pacific sea nettle do wash up and can
still sting even after the animal is dead.
“So that’s why we recommend not
handling jellies unless you’re 1,000%
sure what it is,” the organization wrote.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Jellyfish on the sand near Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach.