NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Wildland firefighters get rappel training Wolves kill 1 calf, injure
2 others in Baker County
By STEVEN
MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
JOHN DAY — Heli-
copters hovering over the
Malheur National Forest are
a telltale sign that fire season
has arrived in Grant County.
Last week, the Grant
County Regional Airport
was the jumping-off point for
essential training for a select
group of wildland firefight-
ers as the U.S. Forest Service
hosted its yearly rappel certi-
fication training course.
Roughly 60 returning
rappelers from Oregon and
Idaho dangled from heli-
copters hundreds of feet in
the air to practice rappel-
ing, a method of descend-
ing rapidly using ropes and
climbing hardware. They
also participated in mock-
ups and reviewed emergency
procedures.
Adam Kahler, a national
rappel specialist who started
as a rappeler in Grant County
in the early 2000s, said the
training from May 2-7 was
one of two annual recertifi-
cation events the U.S. Forest
Service hosts each year.
There’s also a rookie train-
ing in Salmon, Idaho.
Rappel-trained f ire-
fighters are an elite group.
According to Kahler, there
are just 300 Forest Service
rappelers nationwide.
Last week’s training was
Steven Mitchell/Blue Mountain Eagle
A firefighter participates in a training May 5, 2022, during the U.S. Forest Service’s national
rappel certification training at the Grant County Regional Airport near John Day.
for veteran rappelers. Some,
Kahler said, were coming
back for their 15th year,
while others were coming
back for their second or third
season.
The training session, he
said, is a chance not only
to come back and do crew
training but it also provides
an opportunity for multiple
crews — rappelers, helicop-
ter spotters and pilots — to
work together again.
Kahler said a rappel crew’s
specialty is roping into small,
remote, quick-response fires.
All of the training is stan-
dardized. So, when a crew
is called out, depending on
the location, they can be on
a fire in as little as an hour.
That’s why the training is so
important between the multi-
ple crews, Kahler said.
“(Rappelling) is just
a very quick, efficient
way to get people on
the ground where they
need to be,” he said.
Kahler said the rappel
crews do not bring on new
Forecast for Pendleton Area
firefighters. Instead, they
look for experienced fire-
fighters who bring a solid
skill set with them.
When the Forest Service
dispatches a crew to a remote
area, they have limited
supervision.
Typically, he said, each
crew is between two and
four people, and they go out
in the woods and make deci-
sions on their own.
“We’re looking for very
experienced, very fit people,”
Kahler said.
| Go to AccuWeather.com
TODAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
Cloudy, cool; brief
p.m. showers
Some sun, then
clouds and cool
Warmer; a morning
shower
A stray afternoon
thunderstorm
Cloudy and cooler
60° 38°
58° 52°
64° 42°
63° 52°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
69° 50°
61° 46°
73° 51°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
73° 53°
67° 44°
76° 52°
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
51/41
54/35
59/32
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
58/39
Lewiston
52/39
66/44
Astoria
52/41
Pullman
Yakima 62/39
49/36
63/41
Portland
Hermiston
54/42
Salem
The Dalles 64/42
59/41
52/35
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
56/34
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Bend
54/38
54/34
53/36
Ontario
66/43
Caldwell
Burns
65°
32°
76°
45°
95° (1993) 29° (1999)
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
Eugene
0.00"
0.68"
0.27"
4.57"
1.99"
3.82"
WINDS (in mph)
63/43
54/34
0.00"
0.99"
0.47"
6.61"
3.81"
5.81"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
60/38
52/33
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
Pendleton 53/31
53/38
Corvallis
62°
36°
71°
45°
98° (1931) 28° (1911)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
52/38
Aberdeen
54/35
58/38
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
52/40
Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
57/46
Fri.
WSW 7-14
WSW 4-8
WSW 7-14
W 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
52/37
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
5:28 a.m.
8:16 p.m.
4:16 p.m.
4:01 a.m.
Full
Last
New
First
May 15
May 22
May 30
June 7
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 104° in Presidio, Texas Low 10° in Bodie State Park, Calif.
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
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
E AST O REGONIAN
— Founded Oct. 16, 1875 —
70s
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Copyright © 2022, EO Media Group
90s
100s
warm front stationary front
110s
high
low
Spring snowstorms transform
Northeastern Oregon snowpack
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — April
showers couldn’t completely
make up for a meager winter
snowpack in the mountains of
Northeastern Oregon.
But the month put on a
pretty fair rally.
And so far May has main-
tained the momentum, with
snow falling not only in the
mountains but also, most
recently on Sunday, May 8,
and Monday, May 9, in the
valleys.
A persistent weather
pattern over the past month
that has pushed cool storms
through the region regularly,
laden with Pacific moisture,
has transformed a paltry
snowpack into one that, in
some places, has soared well
above average.
Statistics illustrate how
stark the reversal has been.
During March, which
in many years is the snow-
iest month at higher eleva-
tions, the water content in
the snow — the statistic that
best predicts summer water
supplies — dropped at 13 of
17 measuring sites around the
region. The water content was
below average at all of those
places by the end of March.
But the storms of April
had a profound effect.
At High Ridge, for
instance, in the northern Blue
Mountains near Tollgate, the
water content at the start of
April was 17.8 inches — 74%
of average.
By month’s end the water
content had risen to 21.6
inches. More notably, that
figure was 177% of average.
A similar trend prevailed
at some other sites:
• Moss Springs above
Cove — 76% of average at
the start of April, 117% at the
end.
• Bald Mountain, near
Moss Springs — 59% to
109%.
• Mount Howard, near
Wallowa Lake — 84% to
106%.
• Aneroid Lake, Eagle Cap
Circulation Dept.
For mail delivery, online access, vacation stops
or delivery concerns call 800-781-3214
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
A trail sign on the east side of Anthony Lake barely cleared
the snow on Sunday, May 8, 2022.
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Fresh snow mantled the trees around the Anthony Lake
Guard Station, on the north shore of Anthony Lake, on Sun-
day, May 8, 2022.
Wilderness south of Wallowa
Lake — 61% to 74%.
Jason Yencopal, Baker
County emergency manage-
ment director who also
does snow surveys, plod-
ded through the drifts to a
meadow just east of Anthony
Lake on the first day of May.
He measured 64 inches of
snow — up from 49 inches at
the end of March.
The water content rose
during April from 19.5 inches
— 61% of average — to 25.5
inches, 91% of average.
One damp month can’t
end the region’s drought, to
be sure.
As of May 3, all of North-
eastern Oregon was in either
moderate, severe or extreme
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
Local home
delivery
Savings
(cover price)
$10.75/month
50 percent
52 weeks
$135
42 percent
26 weeks
$71
39 percent
13 weeks
$37
36 percent
EZPay
Single copy price:
$1.50 Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
drought, according to the U.S.
Drought Monitor.
(The monitor uses a five-
level rating system — abnor-
mally dry, and four categories
of drought, moderate, severe,
extreme and exceptional.)
Most of Baker County
remains in extreme drought,
with a small part on the west-
ern side, and much of the
Panhandle, in severe drought.
Phillips Reservoir in
Sumpter Valley, which
supplies irrigation water for
more than 30,000 acres in
Baker Valley, is holding just
12% of its capacity.
Thief Valley Reservoir,
near North Powder, is full,
and Unity Reservoir in south-
ern Baker County is 92% full.
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RICHLAND — Wolves
from the Cornucopia pack
killed a calf north of Richland
last week and injured two
other calves in the same area
about two weeks ago, accord-
ing to the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife.
ODFW biologists on
May 5 investigated both
cases, which happened in the
same area.
In the case of the dead
calf, ODFW staff found the
carcass of the approximately
225-pound calf on a 5,400-
acre public land grazing allot-
ment managed by the Bureau
of Land Management.
The carcass was mostly
eaten, but most of the hide
was intact, according to an
ODFW report. Biologists
estimated the calf died about
a day earlier, on May 4.
They skinned the carcass
and found bite scrapes on the
outside and back of the calf’s
right rear left above the leg,
with underlying trauma up
to 1 inch deep to the muscle
tissue. There also was trauma
to the right shoulder and
throat.
“The location and depth
of trauma is consistent
with wolf attack injuries on
calves this size,” according
to the report.
In the second incident, a
rancher found two injured
calves while working cattle
gathered on a private pasture.
Both calves survived and are
healing.
One calf was about
3 weeks old, weighing
75 pounds, and the other
was about 8 weeks old and
weighed about 100 pounds.
Biologists examined inju-
ries to both calves that they
estimated had happened
about two weeks earlier.
Biologists shaved portions
of the calves’ hides. One calf
had bite scrapes up to an inch-
and- a-half long on the inside
and outside back of its left
rear leg. The other calf had
bite scrapes up to an inch long
on the outside of the right rear
leg, and an infected wound,
with multiple bite punctures,
on the left rear hock.
The wounds were consis-
tent with wolf attacks on live
calves, according to ODFW.
The agency also is inves-
tigating a report of another
possible wolf attack reported
on Saturday, May 7, at a prop-
erty on Skinner Road at the
northeast part of Keating
Valley.
A calf was injured in that
area about two weeks ago, but
the animal survived.
A separate wolf pack, the
Keating pack, uses that area,
according to ODFW.
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