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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 2019)
MONDAY BEAVERS, DUCKS BOTH WIN, PG. 5A SPORTS, 6A BHS CROSS-COUNTRY Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com September 16, 2019 IN THIS EDITION: Local • Home & Living • Sports Monday $1.50 QUICK HITS Pot shops react to vape issues Fire Season Unusually Quiet In Northeastern Oregon Good Day Wish To A Subscriber A special good day to Herald subscriber Anna Lewter of Baker City. More Fizzle Than Flame BRIEFING Powder River clean up planned for Saturday The Powder Basin Wa- tershed Council is planning a clean up of the Powder River in Baker City for Saturday, Sept. 21 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Volunteers should meet at Geiser- Pollman Park. Snacks and water will be provided. To pre-register, call 541-523- 7288. By Jayson Jacoby jjacoby@bakercityherald.com The owners of Sumpter’s two marijuana dispensaries temporarily removed some vaping products from their shelves due to nationwide reports of lung illnesses tied to vaping, but both said they quickly confi rmed that most of their products don’t contain a thickening agent tied to the health scare. Investigators have fo- cused on vitamin E acetate, which dilutes vape oils. Vitamin E is safe as a pill or when applied on skin, but when inhaled the drop- lets can trigger pneumonia. Traffi c delays crossing Hells Canyon Dam Travel across Hells Can- yon Dam will be restricted today through Thursday as crews replace spillgate cables, a task that requires a large crane. Drivers planning to cross the dam should expect delays of up to two hours each day between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. PDT. In addition, work on the road between Oxbow and the dam will cause traffi c delays from Sept. 23 through Dec. 1. Traffi c will be restricted to a single lane on a half-mile section near Oxbow. Work will take place between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. PDT weekdays. De- lays of 30 minutes, and up to 2 hours, are expected. WEATHER Today 63 / 36 Cloudy with rain showers Tuesday 68 / 43 Mostly cloudy with afternoon rain Full forecast on the back of the B section. The space below will be blank on issues delivered or sold from boxes. The space is for a postage label for issues that are mailed. Sydney Keller See Vaping/Page 2A U.S. Forest Service photo The Granite Gulch fi re in the Eagle Cap Wilderness was the largest by far on the Wallowa-Whitman this summer. Pilot of crashed plane was Idaho man By Dick Mason “Obviously it’s a fairly quiet year Eagle Cap Wilderness. Fire managers jjacoby@bakercityherald.com say the Granite Gulch fi re has had from a large fi re standpoint. Our benefi cial effects, including reducing For the second straight summer starts were way up from last year the amount of combustible fuel in the Northeastern Oregon, even as it broiled beneath a scorching sun, forest and creating a natural fi rebreak but we had good success with stayed comparatively cool through the that could slow or stop a future blaze.) initial attack.” wildfi re season. The total burned acreage from the — Noel Livingston, fi re But though both years were tran- Wallowa-Whitman’s 67 fi res, again not quil, there were signifi cant differences management offi cer, Wallowa- counting Granite Gulch, is 98.5 acres. Whitman National Forest between the 2019 season and its im- That’s well below the average of mediate predecessor. 22,000 acres burned annually, and Most notably was the number of on the Wallowa-Whitman — exactly fewer burned acres than all but 12 fi res. the annual average from the previous years in the past 50. The 2018 season stands out for the 10-year period. “Obviously it’s a fairly quiet year scarcity of blazes, said Noel Livings- But with the exception of the Gran- from a large fi re standpoint,” Livings- ton, fi re management offi cer for the ite Gulch fi re in the Eagle Cap Wilder- ton said. “Our starts were way up from Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. ness, which has spread across 5,555 last year but we had good success with Lightning, which starts most fi res acres, none of this summer’s lightning initial attack.” on the forest, ignited just 26 blazes last fi res has burned more than 30 acres. Livingston is referring to the early year, the fewest since at least 1970. (The Granite Gulch fi re is an anom- phase of fi refi ghting, when the differ- Those fi res burned just 17.3 acres, aly because the Wallowa-Whitman ence between succeeding and failing which ranks as the third-lowest an- has been managing the blaze rather can mean the difference between a fi re nual total in the past half century on than trying to put it out as quickly that burns a tenth of an acre and one the Wallowa-Whitman. as possible. The forest has a policy that burns 10,000. The 2019 season has been much that allows a variety of strategies for See Fizzle/Page 3A more active, with 68 lightning fi res lightning-sparked fi res inside the By Jayson Jacoby The (La Grande) Observer The pilot who died in a plane crash Sept. 8 north- west of Anthony Lakes was David Emery Koeppen, 82, of Fruitland, Idaho, accord- ing to Union County Sheriff Boyd Rasmussen. Koeppen was fl ying from Kennewick, Washington, to Ontario when he “appar- ently got off course’’ Capt. Craig Ward of the Union County Sheriff’s Offi ce said Thursday, and his plane crashed at Elk Willow Springs about 35 miles northwest of Baker City. The UCSO’s Search and Rescue unit was notifi ed at 11:23 p.m. on Sept. 10 that Koeppen’s plane was overdue and might have crashed. See Plane/Page 3A He’s ready for the next stage ■ Baker High School senior Jordan Remien will attend a musical and dramatic academy in the fall of 2020 By Lisa Britton For the Baker City Herald S. John Collins / Baker City Herald Jordan Remien has loved singing and performing for as long as he can remember, and now he has the chance to make it a career. “It always seemed like an unattainable goal,” he said. Remien, 17, is a senior at Baker High School. But he already knows where he is headed in the fall of 2020: the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Jordan Remien, left, Grady Lay and other choir members practice attaining a correct sound by feeling vibrations in their jaws. TODAY Issue 55, 14 pages Calendar ....................2A Classified ............. 4B-7B Comics ....................... 3B Community News ....3A Crossword ........5B & 7B Dear Abby ................. 8B Home ................1B & 2B Horoscope ........5B & 7B Lottery Results ..........2A See Remien/Page 2A News of Record ........2A Obituaries ..................2A Opinion ......................4A Senior Menus ...........2A Sports .................. 5A-8A Weather ..................... 8B WEDNESDAY — GO! MAGAZINE ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE