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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020
Climate change heats up ﬁ re risk in forests
IN BRIEF
Coast Guard suspends search
for man swept away by surf
The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Satur-
day for a man who presumably drowned while crab-
bing in Netarts Bay.
Around 2:20 p.m. on Friday, the Oregon State
Police, Tillamook County Sheriff’s Ofﬁ ce, Netarts
Fire and Rescue, and the Coast Guard responded to
a small inﬂ atable boat that had capsized at the mouth
of the bay.
Preliminary investigation revealed that two people,
Srun Hong, 53, and Lyda Hong, 41, had been crabbing
when the boat capsized in the heavy surf.
Lyda Hong was recovered in the surf by a Coast
Guard helicopter crew. She was wearing a life jacket
and was taken to a hospital where she was treated and
released, Oregon State Police said.
Srun Hong, who was not wearing a life jacket, has
not been located and is presumed drowned.
— Associated Press
Port of Kalama signs agreement
with American Cruise Lines on dock
LONGVIEW, Wash. — The Port of Kalama’s
plans to build a $1.5 million cruise ship dock took a
big step forward in November, when commissioners
approved a dock use agreement with American Cruise
Lines.
The port will construct the dock on the river-
front near Marine Park. The agreement provides pre-
ferred usage to the cruise line’s small vessels and
sternwheelers.
American Cruise Lines, which operates river
cruises on the Columbia and Snake rivers, is the only
river cruise that now docks in Kalama.
— The Daily News
DEATHS
Nov. 29, 2020
In HERRINGTON,
Brief
Mar-
lene June, 85, of Seaside
and Astoria, died in Sea-
Deaths
side. Ocean View Funeral
& Cremation Service of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
Nov. 27, 2020
McGIVNEY, Virginia
Ann, 71, of Astoria, died
in Astoria. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
Nov. 21, 2020
HELMICK,
Joseph
William Jr., 30, of Clats-
kanie, died near Clatskanie.
Caldwell’s Luce-Layton
Mortuary of Astoria is in
charge of the arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
Assault
DUII
On
the
Record
•
David
Glenn
• Joshua Ray
Bremner, 59, of Warren-
ton, was arrested Sunday
on Ocean Way in Seaside
for assault in the fourth
degree, menacing, harass-
ment and interfering with
making a report.
Criminal trespass
• Mary Ann Lucas, 69,
of Seattle, was arrested
Sunday on Marine Drive
in Astoria for criminal
trespass in the second
degree.
• James Connell, 56,
was arrested Nov. 24 at
Rite Aid in Warrenton for
criminal trespass in the
second degree.
Ship-
ley, 19, of Warrenton, was
arrested Saturday for driv-
ing under the inﬂ uence of
intoxicants and reckless
driving following a roll-
over crash on U.S. High-
way 30 in Astoria.
• Adam Keil, 36, of
Houston, Texas, was
arrested Wednesday for
DUII and refusing a breath
test following a crash on
N.W. Warrenton Drive in
Warrenton.
• Margaret Wilski, 21,
of Gearhart, was arrested
Nov. 24 on 12th Street and
Marine Drive in Astoria
for DUII.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Community Center Commission, 10 a.m., Bob Chisholm
Community Center, 1225 Avenue A, Seaside.
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, noon, work
session, (electronic meeting).
Port of Astoria Commission, 4 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m., Seaside Public Library,
1131 Broadway.
Astoria Library Board, 5:30 p.m., Astoria Library, Flag
Room, 450 10th St.
Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
Miles Crossing Sanitary Sewer District Board, 6 p.m.,
34583 U.S. Highway 101 Business.
WEDNESDAY
Seaside Improvement Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., 698 Paciﬁ c Way.
THURSDAY
Astoria Design Review Commission, 5:30 p.m., City Hall,
1095 Duane St.
Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 7 p.m., City Hall, 989
Broadway.
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District, 7 p.m.,
webinar on Broadway Middle School purchase, (electronic
meeting).
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By MICHAEL KOHN
Bend Bulletin
Before
Labor
Day,
Detroit was a quaint com-
munity on the shores of its
namesake reservoir in the
Santiam Canyon.
A day later the town was
a smoldering ruin, with piles
of twisted metal and rubble
where residents once lived
and worked. A burned-out
ﬁ retruck stood in the town’s
center, a symbolic and tragic
symbol of the devastation.
The same scene unfolded in
Blue River, Vida, Phoenix,
Talent and other small towns
around the state.
While rising seas and
ﬂ ooded cities are iconic con-
sequences of global warm-
ing in coastal areas, in land-
locked c entral Oregon, the
effects of climate change are
being felt by an increasing
threat: ﬁ re.
The massive wildﬁ res
that swallowed whole towns
in the Western U.S. in recent
years are increasingly being
blamed on global warm-
ing as the
rising tem-
peratures
dry out for-
ests, making
them more
prone to ﬁ re.
C a l i f o r-
nia has been ground zero for
the effects of climate change
on forests. But the problem
erupted in Oregon this year
when wildﬁ res tore across
the state in September, burn-
ing down communities in
the Santiam and McKen-
zie river canyons west of
the Cascades, and sending
a dense fog of smoke into
c entral Oregon, where it lin-
gered for more than a week.
Undoubtedly, the severe
wind event that occurred on
Labor Day played a large
part in the spread of the ﬁ res
in Oregon. The question is,
would a damper west-side
forest have made it more
resilient to the approaching
ﬂ ames?
While the ﬁ res would still
have been devastating, any
extra moisture could have
helped slow the inferno.
Now scientists, ﬁ re ofﬁ cials
and local leaders are warn-
ing Oregonians to be pre-
pared, as the trend of global
warming increases, so do
the odds of more wildﬁ res.
“What stands out to me
is the aridiﬁ cation of the
forests, how much drier
they are getting,” said Larry
O’Neill, associate professor
at Oregon State Universi-
ty’s College of Earth, Ocean
and Atmospheric Sciences.
“Every summer, we seem
to be in an extreme drought,
and it’s becoming more fre-
quent and deﬁ nitely plays a
big role in how the ﬁ res are
getting larger.”
What do increased ﬁ res
mean for c entral Orego-
nians? For one, ﬁ re events
the size of the Septem-
ber ﬁ res can sever trans-
portation links to the west.
Then in winter, the burned
hillsides become suscepti-
ble to landslides, creating
more hazards for drivers.
Even more problematic, and
affecting more people, is the
smoke.
Dr. George Conway,
director
of
Deschutes
County Health Services,
reports that the county’s
medical clinics and hospi-
tals saw a rise in patients
coming in with shortness
of breath and asthma-like
symptoms in mid-Septem-
ber, a few days after the area
became shrouded with wild-
ﬁ re smoke.
The fast-moving ﬁ res
and their impact across Ore-
Dry climate models
What has changed over
the years? In the Willa-
mette National Forest, sum-
mertime temperatures have
risen 2.8 degrees over the
past four decades, according
to data compiled by Oregon
State’s Paciﬁ c Northwest
Climate Impacts Research
Consortium. During the
same period, precipitation
has declined 2.4 inches.
Another key metric is the
1,000-hour fuel moisture,
which represents the mois-
ture content in the decom-
posing wood and leaves on
the forest ﬂ oor. In the Wil-
lamette National Forest, this
has decreased by 2.6% since
the 1980s, according to data
compiled by Climate Engine.
“The double whammy
of substantial warming with
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noted declines in summer
precipitation has escalated
fuel drying in forests in Ore-
gon, similar to what has hap-
pened in the broader West
during the summer,” said
John Abatzoglou, an associ-
ate professor of c limatology
at the University of Califor-
nia, Merced.
Even a wet winter this
year would not necessar-
ily bring the forests back to
normal levels of moisture,
O’Neill warns.
“This is both rain-depen-
dent, temperature-dependent
and
humidity-dependent,
so even if we get a normal
amount of rain this winter,
these metrics likely won’t
get back to normal unless the
winter is also accompanied
by normal temperatures and
humidities,” said O’Neill.
Scientiﬁ c projections do
not indicate a turnaround to
cooler times anytime soon.
A report published in 2019
by a group of Oregon State
academics has projected that
average temperatures in the
state will rise 4 to 9 degrees
by 2100.
‘WHAT STANDS OUT TO ME IS THE
ARIDIFICATION OF THE FORESTS,
HOW MUCH DRIER THEY ARE
GETTING. EVERY SUMMER, WE SEEM
TO BE IN AN EXTREME DROUGHT,
AND IT’S BECOMING MORE
FREQUENT AND DEFINITELY
PLAYS A BIG ROLE IN HOW THE
FIRES ARE GETTING LARGER.’
Call us for a
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gon stemmed from a com-
bination of factors, beyond
the drying forests. To start,
there was a general lack of
equipment, resources and
people, as these had already
shifted to California to ﬁ ght
wildﬁ res. The primary fac-
tor, however, was the Labor
Day windstorm, with gusts
up to 75 mph that kicked up
the ﬂ ames.
Charles Lefevre, of
Eugene, a pioneer in the
North American trufﬂ e
industry, has been roam-
ing forests on Oregon’s
west side for more than
four decades. Lefevre said
he had never experienced
such a violent, low-humid-
ity windstorm in Oregon.
He fears that California’s
weather patterns are shifting
toward Oregon.
“Combined with ﬁ re, that
wind became a blast fur-
nace,” said Lefevre. “The
wind was the unusual ele-
ment in the mix of condi-
tions this year and it is the
thing we need to be afraid of
in the future as California’s
climate moves north.”
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A burned-out car sits in a neighborhood destroyed by wildﬁ re in Santiam Canyon in November.
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“We continue to see an
increase in ﬁ re growth and
explosive ﬁ re behavior on a
yearly basis,” said O’Neill.
“I don’t anticipate anything
that will prevent that from
continuing.”
Protecting communities
Ofﬁ cials are now tasked
with ﬁ nding ways to limit
future ﬁ res and protect com-
munities. Rachel Pawlitz, a
spokeswoman for the U.S.
Forest Service, said the his-
toric wind event and subse-
quent ﬁ res have sparked dis-
cussion at the service about
what can be learned and
applied to ﬁ nding solutions.
“There was no single
cause, and we don’t expect
to ﬁ nd any single solution
to wildﬁ res of this magni-
tude, but we are exploring
the concept of how to build
more resilient landscapes
and ﬁ re-ready communi-
ties,” said Pawlitz.
When it comes to ﬁ ght-
ing ﬁ res, Alex Robertson,
ﬁ re and aviation staff ofﬁ -
cer for Central Oregon Fire
Management Service, says a
combination of solutions are
needed. This includes more
response resources, more
forest management and bet-
ter coordination between
response agencies.
“I don’t think there is
a silver bullet,” said Rob-
ertson. “A combination of
things will help us have suc-
cess in the future.”
Preparation and forest
management are also crit-
ical and have worked on
the east side, especially
around Bend and Sisters.
The Deschutes Collabora-
tive Forest Project works
to reduce the potential for
high-intensity wildﬁ res, by
thinning the forest, mulch-
ing brush and using pre-
scribed ﬁ re.
Fire ofﬁ cials attempt
to mimic nature by apply-
ing ﬁ re to an area based on
its natural interval, which
on the east side of the Cas-
cades is 15 to 25 years. But
the west side, with its wet-
ter and cooler climate, has
a ﬁ re interval of around 200
years, according to Robert-
son, making it more difﬁ cult
to replicate nature.
“The west side is tough.
F ire intervals are much
larger than the east side dry
forests,” said Robertson.
“The impact of ﬁ res on the
west side are typically much
greater than on the east side
due to the amount of fuel.”
Because of these unique
circumstances,
Robert-
son says on the west side
of Oregon, it’s more difﬁ -
cult for ﬁ re ofﬁ cials to man-
age the forests in a way that
reduces wildﬁ re risk. Even
the construction of more
Forest Service roads would
be problematic.
“The Forest Service is
trying to reduce the num-
ber of roads they have now,
due to an inability to main-
tain the current system,”
said Robertson. “Access
will always be a problem
in some areas and although
roads can help with access
and fuel breaks, it still takes
people and resources to use
those breaks and barriers.”
As Lefevre highlights,
west-side forests that burned
in September were largely
victims of the windstorm, so
conducting forest manage-
ment on the west side is not
always a factor.
“West-side forests typi-
cally burn once every few
centuries with no forest
management, and the Hol-
iday Farm ﬁ re in particu-
lar completely devastated
mostly intensively managed
young timber,” said Lefe-
vre, of the trufﬂ e industry.
Some argue that pre-
scribed ﬁ re can and should
be conducted on the west
side to reduce overall fuel
load and ﬁ re risk. According
to O’Neill, the best approach
is with light burns that are
small enough to keep the
canopy closed. When the
forest canopy opens and
sunlight ﬁ lters through, he
says, it can hasten the dry-
ing out of fuel and soil.
Low-intensity
pre-
scribed burns can stimulate
plants’ immune systems,
said O’Neill, making forests
more resilient to disease and
pest infestations. But the
amount of prescribed burns
needs to increase.
“Until the burns increase,
we will continue to expe-
rience the type of large,
devastating wildﬁ res such
as we’ve seen across the
West over the last 10 to 20
years,” said O’Neill. “Cli-
mate change is now forc-
ing our hand to implement a
sustainable long-term solu-
tion to managing the wild-
ﬁ re risk.”