FAA grants Pendleton UAS Range line-of-sight waiver | REGION A3
TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2022
146th Year, No. 90
$1.50
WINNER OF 16 ONPA AWARDS IN 2021
WILDFIRES
PENDLETON RUN
Danger
creeps
higher
By JAYSON JACOBY
Baker City Herald
BRAAAP!
DIRT BIKES TAKE
TO THE TRACK AT
PENDLETON RUN
Photos by Yasser Marte/East Oregonian
Top: The Summer Chute Out III dirt bike races kick off Saturday,
July 16, 2022, inside the Pendleton Round-Up Arena during the
Pendleton Run motorcycle event, which ran July 14-17. Above: Mo-
torcyclist Kenan Duncan (44) advances at the race. Right: A stunt
motorcyclist impresses with a fl ip
For more photos from the event go to page A6
BAKER CITY — The wild-
fi re season has been pretty tran-
quil in Northeastern Oregon, but
Al Crouch and Nathan Goodrich
are beginning to detect the poten-
tial for boisterous days to come.
They see it in the grass, nour-
ished by plentiful spring rain but
now curing into tinder beneath
the July sun.
And in the heat that has fi nally
arrived, pushing temperatures to
triple digits at lower elevations,
and humidity levels below 20%.
“It’s defi nitely drying out,”
Goodrich, fi re staff offi cer for
the Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest, said July 12. “Things
have changed quite a bit in the
last two weeks.”
Crouch, the fire mitigation
specialist for the Bureau of Land
Management’s Vale District,
concurred with his fellow federal
fi re manager.
“The drying is happening
fast,” Crouch said, also on Tues-
day, the hottest day of the year in
some places.
That’s especially so in Baker
County and points south, he said.
The lush crop of grass, includ-
ing invasive cheatgrass, that grew
this spring has already dried in
much of Malheur County, and
the trend is moving north, Crouch
said.
After the soggy spring, the
Baker City Airport has been rela-
tively parched, measuring just
0.05 of an inch of rain since June 6.
Thunderstorms that doused
other parts of the region mostly
missed Baker City.
Meacham, by contrast, has
had 3.12 inches of rain during
that span, most of it coming from
a couple of June cloudbursts.
The Eastern Oregon Regional
Airport in Pendleton has recorded
1.33 inches since June 6.
The Willowcreek fi re, which
started on private property north
of Vale on June 28, rapidly spread
to about 40,000 acres, propelled
by gusty winds on a day when
temperatures reached 100 degrees
in north Malheur County.
That fire shows the poten-
tial for fast-moving fi res given
a combustible combination of
weather conditions, Crouch said.
Yet that blaze, which is still
under investigation, is also a
conspicuous anomaly.
The Blue Mountain Inter-
agency Dispatch Center at the
Union County Airport, which
oversees much of Northeastern
Oregon — although not Malheur
County — has recorded just 17
fi res this year, which burned a
scant 2.7 acres.
See Danger, Page A6
CCS assessment appointments booked until December
Umatilla County plans to provide $750K during
the next three fi scal years for more clinicians
By JOHN TILLMAN
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Community
Counseling Solutions, Umatilla
County’s mental health and addic-
tion treatment provider, is booked
for mental health intake assessments
until December.
“It varies for addiction and
mental health and by location,” CCS
Executive Director Kimberly Lind-
say said. “Waiting lists are longest
in Umatilla County, but shorter
in Morrow, Grant, Wheeler and
Gilliam.”
CCS off ers a variety of behav-
ioral health services, including indi-
vidual, family and group therapy,
alcohol and drug treatment and 24/7
crisis intervention. It cooperates
with other organizations, including
residential and acute psychiatric
services and school programs. CCS
also provides case management for
developmental disabilities in the fi ve
counties.
“Everybody gets a screening,”
Lindsay said. “We could do more
assessments, but then the client
would have to wait fi ve months for a
clinical appointment. So the sched-
uling delay means we’re back to the
same issue.”
See CCS, Page A6
Mackenzie Whaley/East Oregonian
The mental health facility of Community Counseling Solutions, Umatil-
la County’s mental health and addiction treatment provider, is open at its
Pendleton location Thursday, July 14, 2022. CCS has reported it is booked for
mental health intake assessments until December.