NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Friday, January 18, 2019
U.S. shutdown stalls training,
other prep for wildfire season
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — Just
two months after a wildfire
wiped out Paradise, Califor-
nia, officials are gearing up
for this year’s fire season and
fear the government shut-
down could make it even
more difficult than one of the
worst in history.
The winter months are
critical for wildfire managers
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 employ-
ees are furloughed. Fire-
fighting training courses are
being canceled from Tennes-
see to Oregon, piles of dead
trees are untended in federal
forests 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
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File
In this Nov. 12, 2018, file photo, a firefighter battles a fire
along the Ronald Reagan Freeway, aka state Highway 118, in
Simi Valley, Calif.
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 firefighting
agencies strategize are being
called off.
The fire season starts
as early as March in the
southeastern United States,
and by April, fires pop up in
the Southwest. Last year’s
most devastating fire lev-
eled the Northern California
town of Paradise just before
Thanksgiving, 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 Department
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
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
Cloudy
Mostly cloudy with
a little rain
Cloudy, a little rain;
cooler
Times of clouds
and sun
A thick cloud cover
50° 42°
50° 39°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
41° 32°
44° 33°
49° 41°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
50° 41°
54° 41°
46° 33°
48° 30°
OREGON FORECAST
52° 41°
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
49/46
Kennewick Walla Walla
50/44
Lewiston
49/47
51/41
Astoria
51/47
43/37
43/34
Longview
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Pullman
Yakima 44/37
49/43
49/40
Portland
Hermiston
50/45
The Dalles 50/41
Salem
Corvallis
49/47
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
45/38
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
50/47
43/39
45/42
Ontario
47/36
48/38
40/31
0.24"
0.42"
0.70"
0.42"
0.64"
0.70"
WINDS (in mph)
Caldwell
Burns
40°
34°
42°
29°
62° (1974) -21° (1930)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
49/47
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 42/34
50/47
0.26"
0.38"
0.89"
0.38"
0.79"
0.89"
HERMISTON
Enterprise
50/42
44/37
35°
30°
42°
28°
64° (1919) -17° (1930)
The Daily Astorian/Colin Murphey
The Haystack Rock Awareness Program recommends
avoiding jellyfish that wash up on local beaches.
Jellyfish show up by the
hundreds on North Coast
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
EO Media Group
An incomplete list of
things that have washed up
on North Coast beaches:
a giant octopus, dead
whales, pyrosomes, Jap-
anese fishing boats, hun-
dreds of Humboldt squid,
so much bull kelp, so much
plastic.
And now, earlier this
week, moon jellyfish as far
as the eye could see around
Haystack Rock.
Large numbers of
stranded jellyfish are not
an unusual sight on local
beaches, especially after
storms or during times of
strong waves and seasonal
upwelling, the Haystack
Rock Awareness Program
noted on Facebook.
Moon jellyfish are
just one type of jellyfish
that shows up frequently.
Pacific sea nettles, which
do sting, are a common
find. These jellies are yel-
low-brown with a sort of
frilled edge when nestled in
the sand. Tiny comb jellies
will dot the beach, looking
like oversized water drop-
lets frozen in place.
Most years, rafts of Vel-
lela vellela — 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 fool-
hardy dogs.
In recent years, the
North Coast has hosted
unexpected creatures like
pyrosomes. The little-stud-
ied rubbery, tube-shaped,
semitranslucent colonies
showed up en masse on
beaches across Oregon,
and especially around Can-
non Beach and Ecola State
Park, in 2017. More com-
mon 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 tempt-
ing to poke or even pick
up.
The Haystack Rock
Awareness Program noted
that moon jellyfish do not
sting most people, but jel-
lies like the Pacific sea net-
tle do wash up and can still
sting even after the animal
is dead.
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
52/44
Aberdeen
40/35
39/33
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
53/46
week for firefighters who
want to qualify for the com-
mand staff of a fire manage-
ment team. But the class was
canceled without 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 congres-
sional Democrats are at odds
over funding for a border
wall.
A dozen senators from
Oregon, California, New
Mexico, Washington, Colo-
rado, Nevada, West Virginia
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 parachute
into remote forests to bat-
tle blazes not accessible by
firefighters on the ground
and hotshot crews are small
groups of elite firefighters
trained to battle the most
ferocious flames.
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 applications, and some
potential recruits may decide
to work elsewhere to avoid
the hassle.
“Even if the shutdown
ends and we start hiring peo-
ple, we will have missed
the cream of the crop,”
DeGrosky said.
The U.S. Forest Service
said in an email that the
agency was committed to
hiring for temporary and per-
manent firefighting positions
and would continue criti-
cal training “to the extent
feasible.”
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
48/45
Today
Sat.
SSW 4-8
S 7-14
SW 6-12
SW 7-14
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
40/36
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019
7:30 a.m.
4:41 p.m.
2:19 p.m.
4:53 a.m.
Full
Last
New
First
Jan 20
Jan 27
Feb 4
Feb 12
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 79° in Boca Raton, Fla. Low -21° in Saranac Lake, N.Y.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
BRIEFLY
Deschutes County
addresses wildfire risk
with zoning changes
BEND (AP) — Deschutes County has
approved new zoning intended to reduce the
chance that a major wildfire will hit Bend.
Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on
Thursday that the county will require new
construction on Bend’s west side to be low
density and fire-resistant.
The idea is that this new zoning area will
provide a long buffer between the pine for-
ests and one of Oregon’s fastest-growing
cities.
The zoning will mean 10 times fewer
homes in the area than the previous code
permitted.
Paul Dewey, executive director of Cen-
tral Oregon LandWatch, says because of
the winds, wildfire will hit those neighbor-
hoods first and having fire-resistant zoning
is critical.
The nonprofit advocacy group has been
working with the county and private land-
owners for years to get the idea approved.
Student removed from
North Bend school after
online comment about guns
NORTH BEND (AP) — Police
responded to North Bend High School and
contacted a student in the cafeteria after
receiving a report that the 14-year-old boy
had responded to a discussion about cyber-
bullying with “I’ll bring the guns.”
North Bend Police Chief Robert Kap-
pelman said in a statement that no weapons
were found and the student said he didn’t
actually intend to bring guns. The student
was removed from the school and prosecu-
tors are reviewing the case.
KCBY reports that the situation started
Wednesday evening when a North Bend
High teacher learned of an online discus-
sion among students about a student who
was being cyberbullied
School administrators contacted police
Thursday morning.
Lawyer who represented
Saudi men who fled
facing threats
PORTLAND (AP) — The Oregon attor-
ney who represented Saudi nationals who
fled the country after their government
paid their bail has temporarily closed her
law practice because of threats made since
the cases were detailed by The Oregonian/
OregonLive.
Ginger Mooney, of Hood River, told the
newspaper she has received dozens of terri-
fying emails and calls with violent and vir-
ulent anti-Muslim messages.
Mooney has handled at least nine crim-
inal cases involving Saudi students across
Oregon who were accused of crimes includ-
ing sex abuse and harassment.
Most ended with the charges dropped or
reduced. In at least four of those cases, the
men fled the country before trial or com-
pleting their jail sentence. The Saudi gov-
ernment paid for the bail in three of those
cases.
Mooney’s lawyer said Mooney acted
ethically in her representation of the men.
She says the cases represent a fraction of
her overall practice.
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
-10s
-0s
0s
showers t-storms
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
ice
50s
60s
cold front
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