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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 2020)
LOCAL Wallowa.com Wednesday, October 21, 2020 A9 Fire season comes to an end Wallowa-Whitman fi refi ghters Season ends with still fi ghting blazes elsewhere Wallowa County By KATY NESBITT For the Wallowa County Chieftain seeing just over 10 acres burned By RONALD BOND Wallowa County Chieftain ENTERPRISE — Fire season in many parts of Ore- gon has been brutal. But in the northeast cor- ner, it has been considerably tame, and was declared offi - cially over Saturday, Oct. 17. The Oregon Department of Forestry, in a press release Thursday, Oct. 15, said it was terminating fi re season for forest lands that are “pro- tected by the Northeast Ore- gon District” at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The district includes land in Wallowa, Union, Baker and Umatilla counties, as well as portions of Grant, Morrow and Mal- heur counties. “The past few days have brought quite a bit of pre- cipitation across the region,” Matt Howard, Wallowa Unit Forester,” said in the release. “While the district is comfort- able with removing the gen- eral fi re season restrictions, it is important to remember that weather patterns could change and conditions could return to dry and windy. This probably isn’t the right time to burn slash or large debris piles. Waiting for more mois- ture and a sustained fall weather pattern is key.” While fi res raged on the west side of the state, espe- cially during September, Ore- gon’s northeast corner was relatively unscathed. In all, the district responded to 66 Ellen Morris Bishop/For the Wallowa County Chieftain, File Smoke from the epic forest fi res in Western Oregon and Northern California obscure the landscape on Alder Slope as an orange sun sets over Ruby Peak on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2020. Fire season in the Northeast Oregon District offi cially ended Saturday, Oct. 17, 2020, with the district having just more than 250 acres burned. fi res — 40 lightning-started and 26 human-caused — that burned a combined 253.5 acres. By comparison, the entire district has about 1,400 acres a year burn on average, How- ard told the Chieftain Oct. 15. Things were even better in Wallowa County, where Howard said just over 10 acres burned. “My hat’s off to the folks in our community for being fi re conscious,” Howard said. In fact, Howard said the month of July was histori- cally good in the county. “We didn’t have one fi re on our jurisdiction in July, which has never happened before,” he said. The records tracking that data, he said, go back to 1960, “and I would be shocked if it didn’t go back to the begin- ning of the Department of Forestry,” he said. And given what happened in Western Oregon, Howard feels fortunate to have gone through a light season. “We defi nitely had the potential in late August and September,” he said. “Our fuels were critical. (As a result), we were able to sup- port fi re efforts across the state. We sent a lot of people out to help with large fi re sup- port this year.” Landowners do have the OK to begin using burn bar- rels or to burn yard debris piles, the release states. And through the restric- tions will be lifted, How- ard encouraged the public to remain cautious. “What we want to stress is for folks to be really care- ful in the fall with their burn- ing, that they stay with (their fi res), that they make sure it’s out,” he said, adding that those burning industrial slash piles need to notify the department and register the burn with ODF, then report back when the burn is done. ENTERPRISE — Wild- fi res raging in California and the Southwest are extending fi re season for many Wal- lowa County fi refi ghters. Last week a 20-person hand crew headed to the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest in Colorado to fi ght the Cameron Peak Fire, and an engine with six crew members was dispatched to the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. “Arizona’s fi re season won’t stop,” said Nathan Goodrich, Wallowa-Whit- man National Forest north zone fi re management offi - cer. “The season usually ends in late July, but it didn’t get the monsoons it usually does.” Goodrich called the Tonto a “sister” forest to the Wal- lowa-Whitman, and said it’s normal for crews from each of the forests to support each other as the two regions’ fi re seasons don’t generally overlap. “We have had a relation- ship with the Tonto for six to eight years,” Goodrich said, “We send people down there and they send people up here.” This year, Oregon’s fi re season was slow to materi- alize, but blew up the week of Labor Day to an historic level, taxing resources as col- lege students started return- ing to class. Now that fi res in Western Oregon are cool- ing down, Goodrich said Area national forests receive $2.7 million Funding will help Forest Service pay for vegetation management and monitoring By ANN BLOOM For the Wallowa County Chieftain ENTERPRISE — The Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla national for- ests will receive $2.7 mil- lion to improve forest resil- iency, reduce long-term costs of fi re management and improve watershed conditions across North- east Oregon and southeast Washington. “We are deeply excited that the Northern Blue Mountains Collabora- tive will be receiving fund- ing from the Collaborative Landscape Forest Resto- ration Project this year after being ranked the top pro- posal from across the coun- try,” said Alyssa Cudmore, Forestland Program man- ager and coordinator for Wallowa Resource’s My Blue Mountains Woodland Partnership. Cudmore said the total investment could exceed $40 million over the next 10 years if Congress continues to fund this program. Congress created the For- est Restoration Project fund- ing in 2009, and intended to support large scale forest restoration projects and ben- efi t local communities using collaborative approaches to solve forest health problems. “In particular, we are very excited about the CFL- RP’s ability to implement all lands’ shared stewardship of forest restoration and fi res resilience projects across the Northern Blues landscape,” Cudmore said. Many of the challenges forests and communities face today, such as severe wildfi re, invasive species, insects and disease, she said, don’t adhere to boundaries and don’t stop at fi re lines. “In order to prepare our forests to withstand these natural disturbances we need solutions that cross boundar- ies regardless of who owns the land,” she said. The $2.7 million will only be used for projects on federal land managed by the Forest Service. However, this investment will help leverage other funding for projects on tribal and private land adjacent to Forest Ser- vice-managed public land. According to Cudmore, these treatments will reduce overstocked forests with timber harvest, thinning and prescribed fi re creat- ing landscapes and commu- nities that can better endure wildfi re. All of this will ulti- mately support vibrant, local economies, healthy water- sheds and healthy forests with reduced wildlife risk, she said. Cudmore said the con- cept of shared steward- ship of the land was evident throughout the grant pro- posal and emphasized that there were many partners involved in its creation and the prioritization of projects. The project is supported by the Forest Service, the coun- ties within the Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman national forests, industry and conser- vation groups like Wallowa Resources, one of the lead organizations that worked on the grant application. Executive Director Nils Christoffersen said the Northern Blues Collabora- tive, with its founding mem- bers serving since 2012, rec- ognized an urgent need and has long aspired to scale up the collaborative’s early suc- cess to address restoration and rural economic revi- talization in projects such as the Lower Joseph Creek project in Wallowa County and the East Face project bordering Union and Baker counties. Included in the funding is money to pay for moni- toring Forest Service tim- ber harvest, thinning and prescribed burning projects. Baker and Wallowa counties are looking to employ youth and young adults to learn and execute forest monitor- ing techniques. “We’re excited that part- nerships continue to expand and deepen as we pursue all lands shared stewardship across Northeast Oregon and Southeast Washington,” Christoffersen said. “We look forward to the oppor- tunity this will create for the next generation of land stewards to gain jobs and experience in caring for this special place.” Lindsay Warness, Woodgrain Millwork in La Grande’s Forest Policy and Environmental manager, said she is looking forward to working with the Forest Service and using this fund- ing to develop projects that are benefi cial and meet the social, economic and eco- logical needs of both for- est and communities that depend on them. “This is an exciting opportunity to increase the pace and scale of resto- ration in our area as well as provide economic benefi ts to our local communities,” Warness said. According to Mike Bill- man, Oregon Department of Forestry’s Northeast Ore- gon Federal Forest Res- toration Program Coordi- nator, the funding will be instrumental in accomplish- ing fuel-reduction and forest restoration projects vetted through the environmental planning process, but still in need of funding. “The Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla national for- ests have huge backlogs of acres needing treatments and increased funding will cer- tainly help in attaining some level of catching up,” Bill- man said. “It has been truly inspiring to watch the stake- holder partnerships form and step up in the process of preparing the CFLRP pro- posal and now draw together to begin implementation.” Wallowa County FREE Chess Club remaining seasonal and per- manent employees are being released for availability in other regions. The 20-person hand crew that went to Colorado was the fi fth of its type dis- patched off-forest this sea- son, Goodrich said. Last weekend, his overhead team was headed to support fi res in Northern California near Redding where one fi re, the August Complex, has burned 1 million acres. He said the California fi re season started a little early this year and will likely continue for more than another month. “IT’S BEEN A BUSY YEAR ROTATING TEAMS.” — Nathan Goodrich, Wallowa-Whitman National Forest north zone fi re management offi cer “It’s been a busy year rotating teams,” Goodrich said. “Team members are getting tired, and it’s getting hard to fi ll out manifests.” Luckily, some of the sea- sonal employees still avail- able and willing to work are able to, due to an extension of allowable days to work. Goodrich said by allow- ing seasonals to work past Sept. 30, the end of the fed- eral fi scal year, between 500 and 1,000 fi re fi ghters were added to the ranks to staff late season wildfi res. Many of the Wal- lowa-Whitman National Forest fi refi ghters were held back to burn piles and to broadcast burn this fall. Goodrich said in Wallowa County his crews would mostly be burning slash piles from thinning projects as the recent rains dampened hopes of doing large prescribed burns. “There may be a window later on, but in the meantime we will help out the south end of the forest where ele- vations are lower and dryer,” he said. COVID-19 restrictions played heavily in the lives of fi refi ghters and their man- agers this year, Goodrich said, and the end result was healthier crew members. Typically by September and October crews come down with what he called “camp crud.” He credited wearing face coverings, hand wash- ing, crews eating at their vehicles and using toilets reserved for their modules, small groups of co-workers, for slowing down the spread of late fi re season colds and fl us. “Nobody’s sick,” Goodrich said. Other precautions taken on the fi reline Goodrich listed were hosting morning briefi ngs via video confer- encing and all planning and public meetings were virtual. He said while some fi refi ght- ers did contract COVID-19 on the fi reline, for the most part sickness was curtailed. “The precautions worked, for the most part, really well,” he said N OW OP up E se N rvice SUMMER HOURS Now - Labor WED - SU Day 10 am - 8p N m • Walk er garden • Outside be side • Limited in g seatin TAKE OUT ORDERS • CALL 541-263-0874 Get All Your Needs Met! Heating & Cooling Bulk Fuel & Propane Propane stoves & heat for home/office Expertly installed heating systems Even distribution of heat Bulk farm fuel Residential propane heating fuel Bulk diesel, gas & propane Air conditioning units to keep your home/office comfortable in summer One Call Does It All! No meeting until further notice but look forward to seeing you soon! 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