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
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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
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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.
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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