A14
LOCAL
Wallowa County Chieftain
Two large fi res
burning just outside
Wallowa County
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE
—
Two large fi res are burn-
ing in states adjacent to
Wallowa County — and
one of them, as of Tues-
day, July 13, is completely
uncontained.
The worst of the two
blazes is the Snake River
Complex, burning along
the Idaho side of the Snake
River in steep terrain about
20 miles south of Lewis-
ton in Nez Perce County.
The fi re, which accord-
ing to oregonlive.com was
lightning-caused and fi rst
noticed July 7, is made
up of the Shovel Creek,
Captain John Creek and
Hoover Ridge fi res. It cur-
rently has burned 88,299
acres and has no current
containment
reported.
All three fi res in the com-
plex are burning grass and
timber.
“The fi re is kind of
between the Salmon and
the Snake (rivers),” said
Kira Powell, public infor-
mation offi cer on the blaze.
“There were three starts
from lightning, three (fi res)
all merged into what is the
Snake River Complex.”
Powell said the fi re has
moved largely from north
to south, and then started
moving east. Winds on
the fi re, she said, have
moved in from the North
and West, pushing the fi re
south and east. Currently,
there are 263 fi refi ghters
on the blaze.
The other major fi re is
the Dry Gulch Fire, which
Monday was renamed the
Lick Creek Fire, burning in
the Washington side of the
Umatilla National Forest
southwest of Lewiston and
just two miles away from
Asotin. It has scorched
58,011 acres in Garfi eld
and Asotin counties as of
Tuesday morning, and is
20% contained, according
to inciweb.nwcg.gov. The
size of the crew battling
the blaze is 536, according
to a report Monday.
With both fi res burning
close to Wallowa County
air quality in the region
had worsened in recent
days. As of 9 a.m. Tuesday
morning, the Department
of Environmental Quali-
ty’s Air Quality Index in
Enterprise is at 116, which
is considered unhealthy for
sensitive groups.
David Weaver, for-
est offi cer in Wallowa for
the Oregon Department of
Forestry, said the smoke
settling in the county is
largely from the Boot-
leg Fire, a massive blaze
in the Klamath Basin that
has burned more than
201,923 acres and has no
containment as of Tuesday
morning.
Some, though, is from
the closer fi res.
“Looking at the satel-
lite imagery, we are getting
some smoke from the fi re
near Pomeroy which is the
Dry Gulch (Lick Creek),”
he said. “A lot of what
we are seeing is from the
Bootleg Fire.”
Weaver said based on
current wind patterns and
what is expected over the
next few days, agencies
aren’t as concerned about
the Snake River Complex.
They are, however,
watching the Lick Creek
Fire closely.
“We have crews mon-
itoring what currently is
our biggest threat, which
is the Dry Gulch (Lick
Creek) Fire,” he said. “...
Any winds coming out of
the West or Southwest are
favorable for us. We’re
keeping an eye on winds
out of the Northwest,
which would be a problem
for us.”
Eastern Oregon SAR completes 2021 training
The Observer
ENTERPRISE — Search
and Rescue team mem-
bers from Wallowa, Union,
Baker and Umatilla counties
honed their skills in the Salt
Creek Summit area of Wal-
lowa County.
About 60 SAR volunteers
and instructors from the four
counties participated June
24-27 in the multi-day train-
ing, which was hosted by
Wallowa County Search and
Rescue volunteers.
“Our numbers were
down a little from what we
expected, but it’s a little late
in the season,” Paige Sully,
the event coordinator for
WCSAR, said. “But all in all
I think it was great.”
Training included swift-
water rescue, tactical fast
tracking, advanced incident
command, hasty-team and
K-9 land searches, rescuing
injured hikers from remote
locations and coordination
with Civil Air Patrol aircraft.
“It was a very good train-
ing,” said Jim Akenson, who
serves as a WCSAR incident
commander and participated
in the Incident Command
training. “It was fundamen-
tal and advanced all rolled
into one. As an incident
commander, it’s good to see
more and more people com-
ing on who can take lead-
ership roles. Everybody I
observed did really well.”
June 26 was devoted to
classes, most with hands-on
fi eld experience.
Tactical tracking, taught
by Cliff ord Pease and Leon
Kershaw, proved one of the
more popular classes. Both
men track wanted suspects
and escaped prisoners for
the Umatilla County Sher-
iff ’s Offi ce and other law
enforcement agencies. Their
“fast tracking” techniques
have allowed them to follow
and apprehend escaped con-
victs more than 40 miles in
three days.
“It’s important to pay
attention to the small things
that people leave along their
path, including actual tracks
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Traci Murray/Contributed Photo
Wallowa County Search and Rescue swiftwater team member Kyle Bratcher waits for a rescue
line during the swiftwater class in the pond near Salt Creek Summit on Saturday, June 26, 2021.
Traci Murray/Contributed Photo
Wallowa County Search and Rescue packing instructor Jim
Akenson, center, shows WCSAR volunteers Mike Musia, left,
and John Shull the fi ne points of packing a mule in the EOSAR
packing class on Friday, June 25, 2021.
as well as bent twigs, scuff s
and other (signs),” Pease
said. “It’s often possible to
determine a general path
and send a team ahead along
that line to pick up (tracks)
farther ahead and close the
time-distance gap. You can
fi nd the lost person quicker
that way.”
The trackers also worked
with Wallowa County’s
two tracking K-9 teams —
Heather Howard and her
dog, Gracie, and Edward
“Vern” Vernarsky and his
dog, Trooper.
“I really thought the
tracking class was great,”
said
Holly
Akenson,
WCSAR K-9 team leader.
“There were a lot of really
good on-the-ground things.”
Swiftwater rescue train-
ing, led by a team of instruc-
tors from Wallowa County,
took place in the pond near
Salt Creek Summit. SAR
volunteers fi ne-tuned skills
that included accurately
throwing rescue ropes.
SAR hasty, medical and
K-9 teams coordinated by
incident command and SAR
members from multiple
counties spread out in a mock
search and rescue exercise
on June 27 in the Salt Creek
Summit area. Civil Air
Patrol brought in two air-
craft — one from Boise and
another from Redmond —
to aid in searching for sev-
eral “lost hikers,” some of
whom were “injured.” The
search and rescue eff orts
were all successful within
the three hours allotted for
the exercise.
“Learning to work with
and practicing with our
neighboring counties for
mutual aid just makes us
more ready when we have a
big search and we all need to
work together. This way we
all know each other, we’ve
worked together, and I think
that’s really benefi cial,”
Akenson said.