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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 2019)
NORTHWEST East Oregonian A2 Friday, August 2, 2019 Forest Service monitoring lightning fire in Eagle Cap Wilderness By JAYSON JACOBY EO Media Group BAKER CITY — Nathan Goodrich has no problem letting the combination of a lightning bolt and summer heat do part of his work. This particular task involves reintroducing wildfire, and its mul- tiple potential benefits, to Oregon’s biggest wilderness area. Which is no small matter, and not only because the Eagle Cap Wilderness sprawls across 365,000 acres. The wilderness is part of Goodrich’s responsibility as fire management officer for the north- ern part of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. For the past quarter century or so the Wallowa-Whitman has had a policy under which lightning fires, under certain conditions, can burn naturally. During that period more than a dozen fires have burned in the Eagle Cap without being subject to the Forest Service’s standard firefighting tactics. Some of these blazes have spread over a few hun- dred acres or more. The latest of these fires was sparked by lightning on July 14. But Goodrich and other Forest Service officials didn’t know the blaze was smoldering in Granite Gulch, near the center of the wil- derness north of the Minam River, until Sunday. That’s when a hiker reported smoke in Granite Gulch. Since then Goodrich has mon- itored the fire by way of airplane flights and by having fire experts visit the site to gauge fuel mois- U.S. Forest Service Photo This photo taken from an airplane shows the Granite Gulch fire in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. The Minam River Canyon is in the upper right of the photo. ture levels and collect other data that will be fed into a computer model predicting the fire’s behavior through the rest of the summer and into autumn. The fire has burned about 20 acres, which makes it relatively small by the standards of these “leave” fires in the Eagle Cap. Goodrich said the lightning bolt that ignited the fire — the July 14 date is based on an analysis of light- ning-detection maps — struck in an area that’s nearly ideal for a fire that the Forest Service will monitor rather than fight. For one thing, Granite Gulch is more than 6 miles from the nearest boundary between the wilderness and the “regular” national forest. Goodrich said the farther from the boundary the better, because that reduces the chances that a fire could approach the boundary and potentially prompt forest officials to try to slow, and possibly extinguish, the flames. For another, Granite Gulch is an area where fire can benefit the for- est, by reducing the amount of fuel on the ground and thus curbing the severity of future fires in the area. Flames can also help rejuvenate whitebark pine trees, which can suffer if fire is long excluded. Researchers have found that the absence of fire can allow subalpine fir trees to encroach on whitebark pine groves. Fire can also create openings ideal for Clark’s nutcrackers, a bird that feeds on whitebark seeds, to cache the seeds — a vital way that the trees spread. “We’re letting the fire do what it’s supposed to be doing,” Forecast for Pendleton Area TODAY SATURDAY TUESDAY MONDAY SUNDAY Goodrich said. Indeed, the Forest Service has tried over the past couple decades to replicate nature by lighting fires intentionally in parts of the Eagle Cap along the Minam River. Goodrich said he’s optimis- tic that the Granite Gulch fire will be the latest blaze to help advance the Forest Service’s goals in the wilderness. During his tenure here, which started in 2007, several lightning fires have burned in the Minam River drainage, and most accom- plished at least some of the agency’s goals, Goodrich said. Combined, those fires, which include Pot Creek, High Hat Butte, China Cap, Katy Mountain and Minam Peak, burned more than 1,000 acres. “We’ve had one almost every year that I’ve been here, since 2007,” Goodrich said. He concedes the inherent risk in allowing fires to burn — even in a wilderness that covers 570 square miles, bigger than either Hood River County or Multnomah County. In 2009, for instance, the Big Sheep fire southwest of Lostine was fanned by strong winds and burned outside the wilderness onto private land. “That’s what people are fearful of,” Goodrich said. He noted, though, that the Big Sheep fire is an outlier — and its blowup was especially unusual in that it happened in the last week of September, at the very end of the usual fire season. Regardless, Goodrich said he and other fire managers will con- Audit: Oregon state agencies need more spending oversight Associated Press Sunny 90° 60° 90° 59° Hot with some sun Plenty of sun Mostly sunny and hot Mostly sunny PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 97° 62° 99° 63° 96° 63° HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 93° 61° 100° 61° 102° 64° 100° 61° 92° 56° OREGON FORECAST 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 70/55 86/53 89/55 Longview Kennewick Walla Walla 92/63 Lewiston 76/58 95/60 Astoria 71/56 Pullman Yakima 92/58 75/53 95/63 Portland Hermiston 82/62 The Dalles 93/61 Salem Corvallis 81/59 Yesterday Normals Records La Grande 88/56 PRECIPITATION John Day Eugene Bend 85/59 86/52 91/55 Ontario 99/68 Caldwell Burns 93° 64° 90° 60° 109° (2009) 41° (2002) 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 83/60 0.00" 0.00" 0.01" 4.56" 5.10" 5.93" WINDS (in mph) 96/64 90/50 0.00" 0.00" 0.01" 9.61" 6.49" 7.96" through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Pendleton 86/51 82/61 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date HERMISTON Enterprise 90/60 86/62 92° 57° 90° 60° 108° (2009) 41° (1897) PRECIPITATION Moses Lake 77/54 Aberdeen 88/59 86/61 Tacoma Yesterday Normals Records Spokane Wenatchee 76/60 Today Boardman Pendleton Medford 93/62 Sat. WSW 8-16 W 7-14 NW 4-8 NW 6-12 SUN AND MOON Klamath Falls 86/49 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019 Sunrise today Sunset tonight Moonrise today Moonset today 5:39 a.m. 8:23 p.m. 7:27 a.m. 9:49 p.m. First Full Last New Aug 7 Aug 15 Aug 23 Aug 30 NATIONAL EXTREMES Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states) High 111° in Palm Springs, Calif. Low 33° in Boca Reservoir, Calif. NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY tinue to monitor the Granite Gulch fire, just as they do with all blazes in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. If the fire threatens to grow faster than expected and poses a significant risk of crossing the wil- derness boundary, fire bosses can call in resources, such as helicop- ters, to cool the advancing flames, Goodrich said. They did that with the Pot Creek fire in late August 2011, to prevent flames from spreading into the Minam River Canyon. “If it’s not doing what we want it to do, we can take action,” Goodrich said. He said it’s quite plausible that the Granite Gulch fire will grow if the recent hot, dry weather persists. In fact he hopes that happens. Just as the Forest Service doesn’t light prescribed fires on just a hand- ful of acres, he would prefer that a natural fire will burn over enough land to actually improve the landscape. “When the Granite Gulch fire is active, smoke may be visible from the Baker and Grande Ronde val- leys,” Goodrich said. “We will be watching this one closely.” Although Goodrich prefers to let lightning fires burn in the Eagle Cap, in some cases officials have decided to fight fires from the outset. In 2015, for instance, officials summoned crews to extinguish a lightning fire in the Minam River area. That decision was due in part to the fire starting early in the sea- son — around July 1 — which meant that left alone it could have spread during the hottest, driest part of the year. SALEM — A secretary of state audit says Oregon state agencies need more oversight of their spending and the state needs to bolster efforts to make information more transparent to the public. The Statesman Journal reported the audit, released Wednesday, found poten- tially wasteful spending of tax dollars, shortcomings in the state’s transparency web- site and the failure of a new $21 million system to iden- tify double-filled positions in the state’s workforce. Auditors provided their findings to the Department of Administrative Services, which oversees the execution of the state budget throughout state agencies and is respon- sible for Oregon’s transpar- ency website. However, the audit’s 16 recommendations weren’t unanimously embraced by the department. Administrative Services officials offered no agree- ment or disagreement on two of the audit’s recommenda- tions and only partial agree- ment on two others, which include enacting budget pol- icy changes. The department’s response drew a rebuke in the Secretary of State report, which said a partial agree- ment is not an option and “clouds accountability and transparency.” “Our audit response stands on its own,” Depart- ment of Administrative Ser- vices spokeswoman Liz Craig said in an email. She said agency officials look forward to working with the Secretary of State’s staff and putting the agreed-upon rec- ommendations in place. The audit found state agencies do more discretion- ary spending toward the end of the two-year budget cycle. Agencies lose unspent dol- lars when the new budget cycle starts. Some agency budget directors told auditors they were concerned that high amounts of unspent funding would lead to budget cuts. But they also told auditors that the end of budget cycle spending is a sign of good management practices. Auditors were concerned that a rush to spend funding may lead to a lack of properly vetting spending decisions, including complex informa- tion technology needs. “Rushed procurement also increases the risk that prices available at the time do not represent strong value,” the audit report said. “Pur- chasing for future needs also complicates legislative over- sight, as current needs of the agency are obscured when future needs are also included in current expenditures.” The audit also found a need for more transparency from agencies that double-fill the same position with two or more employees. The information isn’t even readily available on a $21 million Workday system that the Department of Adminis- trative Services implemented this year to track employees, their careers and positions. Double-filling positions is allowed under certain circumstances, like if an agency faces a temporary increase in its workload or to help with the transition from one employee to a suc- cessor employee. Savings from unfilled positions can also be used to double-fill a position. Auditors say that more oversight is needed and cer- tain approaches run counter to state policy that say they are generally intended to be temporary. The audit found that double-filled positions are widely used and some- times used to permanently hire people. Not even legislators regu- larly see how often positions are double-filled, the audit said. Nearly 1,900 positions were doubled-filled in Jan- uary, the audit said. That’s nearly 5 percent of the 39,829 budgeted full-time equiva- lent positions. BRIEFLY Oregon substantially narrows use of death penalty 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 50s ice 60s cold front E AST O REGONIAN — Founded Oct. 16, 1875 — 211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendleton 541-276-2211 333 E. Main St., Hermiston 541-567-6211 Office hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed major holidays EastOregonian.com To subscribe, call 1-800-522-0255 or go online to EastOregonian.com and click on ‘Subscribe’ East Oregonian (USPS 164-980) is published daily except Sunday, Monday and postal holidays, by the EO Media Group, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Periodicals postage paid at Pendleton, OR. Postmaster: send address changes to East Oregonian, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801. Copyright © 2019, EO Media Group 70s 80s 90s 100s warm front stationary front 110s high low SALEM (AP) — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed a law Thursday narrowing the state’s use of the death penalty by substantially lim- iting the crimes apply for capital punishment. Lawmakers have considered it a way to reform the state’s use of death row without actually taking the issue to the voters. Oregon reinstated the death penalty by popular vote in 1984. The new law comes weeks after the federal government announced that it would resume executing death-row inmates for the first time since 2003, bringing a largely dormant issue Subscriber services: For mail delivery, online access, vacation stops or delivery concerns call 1-800-522-0255 ext. 1 SUBSCRIPTION RATES EZPay 52 weeks 26 weeks 13 weeks Local home delivery Savings (cover price) $13/month 60 percent $173.67 41 percent $91.86 38 percent $47.77 36 percent *EZ Pay = one-year rate with a monthly credit or debit card/check charge Single copy price: $1.50 Tuesday through Saturday Circulation Dept. 800-781-3214 ADVERTISING Regional Publisher and Revenue Director: • Christopher Rush 541-278-2669 • crush@eomediagroup.com Advertising Services: • Angela Treadwell 541-966-0827 • atreadwell@eastoregonian.com • Grace Bubar 541-276-2214 • gbubar@eastoregonian.com Multimedia Consultants: • Jeanne Jewett 541-564-4531 • jjewett@eastoregonian.com • Audra Workman 541-564-4538 • aworkman@eastoregonian.com Business Office Coordinator • Dayle Stinson 541-278-2670 • dstinson@eastoregonian.com back into the national spotlight. Previously, the death sentence in Oregon could apply to cases of “aggravated murder,” which includes crimes such as killing on-duty police officers or slayings during a rape or robbery. Those crimes under the new law will receive sentences of life without the possibil- ity of parole. Only four types of crimes can now be considered grounds for receiving a death penalty sentence: killings motivated by ter- rorism, murders of children 14 or younger, killings by an incarcerated person with a previous “aggravated murder” sentence, and pre-meditated killings of police or corrections officers. 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