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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 2003)
6 OCTOBER 15, 2003 Smoke Signals LIFE ON THE EDGE: Tribal MeiA Danger And Beauty Of Fighting Of Grand Ronde crew fights the Clark Fire south of Eugene this year. By Ron Karten mhe road to this summer's Clark Fire t". i. i- i-1 u a xt n gues nisi lu uit; smaii luwn ui j-iuwen, south of Eugene, by beautiful Dexter Lake. Dexter Lake is nestled at the foot of a stunning and high rising section of the Willamette National Forest, and it was there that crews from the Grand Ronde Natural Resources Department (NR) faced flames swooning and surging this summer, sweeping up mountainsides in crescendos of heat and destruc tion. At the fire's peak, 22 crews, 1,200 firefighters, 37 engines, helicopters and bull dozers scrambled and scraped to slow the flames, and where that was not possible, to stay behind them. "Fighting fires is like fighting tigers," somebody from the crew said. "You grab the tail and hope you can hold on until it wears out." Grand Ronde firefighters held on for "right at about three months, from three days after the fire started," according to Tribal member Pete Wakeland, Manager of the Tribes' Natural Re sources Department (NR), long time forest firefighter, and one of three engine bosses for this year's Grand Ronde crew. Teams of 14 people switched out every two weeks, and in total, some 20 Grand Ronde for est firefighters and three Tribal fire engines were engaged. Twenty three-year-old Shane Harmon, from the Wind River Shoshone Tribe, enjoyed this summer's endurance record for the local crew, and possibly for the whole fire fight ing contingent, serving five consecutive 14-day rotations. Campers near the Clark Creek Organizational Campground gave the fire its start, and the lo cation gave it its name. Once started, a 20 mph wind moved the fire faster than anyone expected. Flames licked up the first tree at three p.m. and 1 M 1 if j J 'Sr.. 0 f?0 k 5 r r - V ' f if- 15 i .4-4.. v-. -cm Hf iliiili lii ii ill lY- f-Si ix t ly'ilW- Prevention Shane Harmon, Wind River Shoshone Tribal member, (front right) and others from the Grand Ronde crev distribute straw over indigenous grass seed and fertilizer to prevent the incursion of foreign and potentially dangerous vegetatior on ground cleared as a fire stop during the Clark fire, south of Eugene, and also to prevent runoff into the streams below. !": . ..-5- Recovery Area A look at Fall Creek more than three months after fire swept through. The Forest Service introduced salmon to the creek 8 to 10 years ago, and in recent years, it has once again become a popular fishing spot with local anglers. by four, according to John Poet, Incident Com mander for the fire, "it was raging on both sides of (Fall) Creek." Before this fire was through, it would burn through 5,000 acres of timber, killing half of the trees it encountered, and cost $15 million. It started blazing on July 13 and was still showing "smokes" in late Septem ber. In the aftermath of this fire, nearly a dozen Grand Ronde firefighters kept busy with the unglamorous re construction and rehabilitation work that continued into October. Half an hour's drive from Lowell up narrow forest roads, the Grand Ronde group worked along a fire line a mile east of the actual fire perimeter, a place untouched by flames. Here was where firefighters made one stand as the fire raged, though other firefighters and nature's wiles ulti mately stopped the blaze short of this line. A bull dozer had been up there, however, to clean out debris along the roadside, to rob the fire of its fuel, should it come this far, and the work left the bare ground susceptible to a number of problems including infes tation by foreign vegetation and ero sion. As part of the rehabilitation work, Grand Ronde crew members sowed indigenous grass seed and fertilizer where the ground was bare. They piled debris into chipper chutes that cut it up and redistributed it as ground cover along the roadside. Where chippers were not available, the crew spread straw on top of the seeds and fertilizer, and like the chips, this pre vents the rain from washing away the seeds, or creating mud and runoff threatening to streams and creeks below. Before the job was done, four to five tons of grass seed and six to eight tons of fertilizer would be sown, said Poet. This fire required more rehabilitation work than say, the summer's much larger B&B Complex Fire, a 90,000-acre blaze near Sisters. The Clark fire, however, came in "a high-use recreation area," according to Poet. Private homes, like the log cabin of former State Representative Cedric Hayden, had to be protected from weakened trees, as did well-used roads, hiking trails, picnic sites and fishing areas so while rehabilitation of the B&B Complex Fire lasted about two weeks, the Forest Service planned to put in nearly two months worth of rehabilitation work for the Clark Fire. "A big concern early on," said Jeff Kuust, an NR Timber and Roads Coordinator for the Tribes and another member of the Grand Ronde crew, "is whether it's safe to get under the trees." After the flames were gone, many of the trees looked as beautiful as ever, having survived within and around the 5,000 charred acres. Blackened tree trunks weakened by the fire, however, were marked with orange flagging, indicating they would be cut down, according to Poet. Teams of chainsaw-wielding specialists were often called in to bring down weakened trees rather than risk firefighters working among
