LOCAL & STATE
THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 2021
FIRES
“It’s safe to say we’re going to have a long, diffi cult
season — it’s just a matter of where.”
Continued from Page 1A
Livingston is the Wallowa-
Whitman’s fi re staff offi cer,
McCraw the fi re manage-
ment offi cer for the Whitman
District in the southern half of
the forest.
When they consider the
threats they’ll likely deal with
over the next three months or
so, Livingston and McCraw
worry more about what’s
going to happen thousands
of feet up in the atmosphere,
where electrical storms
sometimes brew on hot sum-
mer afternoons, than what
will transpire below, on the
ground.
And they have a strong
statistical reason to expect
trouble from above.
On the Wallowa-Whitman
over the past half century,
lightning — not careless or
intentionally destructive
people — has sparked almost
eight of every 10 blazes.
That’s quite a different situ-
ation, Livingston said, than
what prevails in national
forests that are closer to met-
ropolitan areas — the Mount
Hood, for instance, parts of
which are less than an hour’s
drive from Portland, or the
Willamette, a similar distance
from both Salem and Eugene.
In those forests the percent-
ages are nearly reversed,
Livingston said, with human-
caused fi res predominant.
This difference is refl ected
in the national forests’ dis-
parate strategies during fi re
season, Livingston said.
The Mount Hood and the
Willamette have fi re staff
who spent much of their time
patrolling, particularly in
popular areas such as camp-
grounds, so as to be ready to
douse human-caused blazes,
he said.
On the Wallowa-Whitman,
by contrast, those sorts of
BAKER CITY HERALD — 5A
— Noel Livingston, fi re staff offi cer, Wallowa-Whitman NF
we just didn’t get the light-
ning,” McCraw said.
It was the second consecu-
tive tranquil fi re season on
the Wallowa-Whitman, even
as major blazes were spread-
ing across millions of acres
elsewhere in the West.
Again, the relatively scar-
city of lightning storms was a
key factor.
In 2019 the Wallowa-Whit-
man had 67 lightning fi res,
which burned 27 acres.
The past two summers
illustrate what might seem, to
a layperson giving the matter
cursory consideration, some-
thing of a misnomer.
It’s not especially rare, Liv-
ingston said, that summers
with extreme fi re danger
actually turn out to be rela-
tively quiet fi re seasons on the
Wallowa-Whitman.
S. John Collins/Baker CIty Herald File
“In really dry years we
The McClain fi re burned near Oxbow, in eastern Baker
often don’t get as much light-
County, in 2006.
ning,” he said.
And to reiterate, lightning
“prevention patrols” are what
Despite bigger crowds at
is the factor that plays by far
Livingston describes as a “col- campgrounds and other rec-
the greatest role in a fi re sea-
lateral duty” for fi refi ghters.
reation sites on the Wallowa- son’s severity on the Wallowa-
“We don’t typically do that Whitman in 2020 — and the Whitman.
except in extreme conditions,” expectation for similar scenes
The situation is similar on
Livingston said. “We don’t
this summer — Livingston
other public land in the state’s
have to do it in a normal year.” said he was “pleasantly sur-
northeast corner, primarily
He concedes, though, that
prised that we didn’t get more sagebrush steppe for which
2021 isn’t likely to be a nor-
human-caused fi res than we the Bureau of Land Manage-
mal year.
did.”
ment is the chief fi refi ghting
At least not as that word
Indeed, the Wallowa-Whit- agency.
was defi ned until 2020.
man’s total of 12 human-
On private and state land,
Livingston said the pan-
caused fi res, which burned a where the Oregon Depart-
demic-driven trend of more
total of just 23 acres, was less ment of Forestry handles
people recreating outdoors
than half the yearly average much of the fi refi ghting, light-
in 2020, a phenomenon seen of 30 human-sparked fi res
ning sparks 70% to 75% of
across the West, was notewor- from 1970-2019.
fi res on average in Northeast-
thy on the Wallowa-Whitman.
Lightning fi res were also
ern Oregon, said Steve Meyer,
“Any time we get more
rarer than usual, with 60
wildland fi re supervisor at
people in the woods, the risk
blazes blackening 12 acres.
the state agency’s Baker City
goes up,” Livingston said.
The annual average is 105 offi ce.
“We’re going to pay more at-
lightning-sparked blazes.
“We’ve had summers when
tention to that.”
“It was a fairly dry year, but we’re setting records for fi re
danger but we don’t have
much of a fi re season because
we don’t get the lightning,”
Meyer said.
Despite the prevalence
of lightning-ignited blazes
in this corner of the state,
neither Meyer, Livingston nor
McCraw is sanguine about
the potential for people to sup-
ply the spark.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Although lightning is
famously fi ckle in where
it strikes, Livingston said
advances in meteorology have
made it much more feasible to
forecast thunderstorms, with
a fair degree of geographical
accuracy, at least a few days,
and even up to a week, in
advance.
Those forecasts can’t tell
fi re bosses where bolts will
strike, and potentially ignite a
fi re, of course.
But Livingston said light-
ning detectors can pinpoint
strikes, which at least gives
fi re crews — and the moun-
taintop fi re lookouts, of which
more than a dozen are still
staffed each summer in north-
east Oregon — a likely set of
places, after the storm passes,
to search for the telltale ten-
drils of smoke.
“It helps us get resources
out into an area ahead of
time, to focus on areas where
we’re most likely to have
lightning fi res,” Meyer said.
Human-caused fi res, by
contrast, are inherently more
frightening, offi cials said,
simply because people can go
almost anywhere.
And unlike with lightning,
there are no sensors to show
where a person carelessly
tossed a cigarette or left a
smoldering campfi re or drove
through a patch of desiccated
grass, where hot muffl ers and
catalytic converters can ignite
the tinder.
“Human activity is really a
wildcard,” Livingston said.
“With human-caused fi res
you never know,” Meyer said.
“It can be anywhere.”
The inherent unpredict-
ability of human-caused fi res
— when they might happen,
as well as where — is one
reason the Forest Service
and Oregon Department of
Forestry institute restrictions
on campfi res, the use of chain
saws and other activities
when fi re danger is high or
extreme.
Livingston said that
despite the many factors
that determine the severity
of a fi re season on a specifi c
national forest, he’s pretty
confi dent that the 2021 sea-
son will be another damaging
one.
“It’s safe to say we’re going
to have a long, diffi cult season
— it’s just a matter of where,”
he said.
Wilderness fi res could
return after 2020 hiatus
Over the past two decades,
fi re managers have allowed
more than a dozen lightning-
sparked fi res to burn naturally
in the Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon’s largest wilderness at
365,000 acres.
The goal is to allow fi re to
perform its natural functions,
including reducing the amount
of fuel on the ground and po-
tentially reducing the severity
of future blazes.
The Wallowa-Whitman sus-
pended this program in 2020 to
allow crews, who were trying to
avoid spreading COVID-19, to
focus on other blazes.
Livingston said lightning
fi res in the Eagle Cap this
summer could potentially be
monitored rather than doused
as soon as possible.
Bentz tours fire Brown signs bill banning guns at Capitol
■ The law, which takes effects this fall, also requires owners to safely store guns
dispatch center
dren, suicides and mass shootings.
It requires that fi rearms be secured
SALEM — Legislators have brought with a trigger or cable lock, in a locked
guns into the Oregon State Capitol for
container or gun room.
personal protection. Protesters have
Opponents said a delay in accessing a
carried semi-automatic rifl es onto the
fi rearm for self-defense could cost lives.
grounds and into the building.
Jim Mischel, of Sheridan, Oregon,
Later this year, doing so will be out-
provided written testimony to lawmak-
lawed under a bill signed Tuesday, June ers describing how his wife woke up
1 by Gov. Kate Brown that was earlier
when he was away one night in 1981.
passed by the Legislature, with Demo- She heard a noise, went to investigate
crats in favor and minority Republicans and saw a stranger in their home.
opposed. The new law also mandates
She tried to get a pistol that was in
the safe storage of guns.
a locked gun box in the nightstand out
“Today, I am signing SB 554 with
but was unable to before the man got
the hope that we can take another step into the bedroom and threatened her
forward to help spare more Oregon
with his gun, Mischel said.
families from the grief of losing a loved
“She has never recovered,” he said.
one to gun violence,” Brown said on
The bill also bans guns from the
Twitter.
Oregon Capitol, changing a law that
The bill was named for Cindy Yuille
allowed concealed handgun licensees to
and Steve Forsyth, who were slain in
bring fi rearms into the building.
a shooting at a Portland-area shop-
In a related development, an inter-
ping mall in 2012 by a man who stole a faith movement plans to present signa-
friend’s AR-15 rifl e. A third person was tures Wednesday to the staff of Oregon
seriously wounded.
Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, a step
Among those who testifi ed in favor of in an attempt to get two initiative peti-
the measure was Paul Kemp, Forsyth’s tions onto the ballot.
brother-in-law.
IP 18 would ban the sale of assault-
“I will never forget the screams I
style weapons in Oregon. IP 17 would
heard when we had to tell my teenage
ban the sale of large-capacity magazines
nephew that his father had been killed and require a permit to purchase any
at the mall,” Kemp said.
gun and a completed background check
Backers of the new law, which takes
before a fi rearm is purchased.
effect three months after the Legisla-
The movement has gathered the
ture adjourns this summer, said it will
signatures of 2,000 voters for each
prevent accidental shootings by chil-
initiative petition and will hand deliver
By Andrew Selsky
Associated Press
By Michael Kohn
The (Bend) Bulletin
REDMOND — At the edge of the Redmond Airport
on Tuesday, June 1, a group of around 10 smokejump-
ers went through a brief preparation exercise on the
tarmac, then promptly boarded a propeller plane in
preparation to leap out of it.
The Redmond Smokejumpers are get-
ting in their practice fl ights while they
can — further into the summer they
are almost certain to be busy fi ghting
live fi res. With dry conditions across the
region and temperatures heating up, this
Bentz
wildfi re season could be one for the ages.
The smokejumpers, and other wildfi re
offi cials across multiple agencies, were on hand at the
Central Oregon Interagency Dispatch Center to give
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, a taste of the upcom-
ing fi re season. Bentz toured the smokejumper facility,
a warehouse of supplies and the Air Tanker Field as
the mercury climbed in the mid-90s.
“My experience in watching so many fi res over the
years is that our agencies are doing their best, and I
just want to make sure that, if they need something,
they can tell me and we can go back and try to help
out,” said Bentz.
Bentz said fuel buildup on the forest fl oor is “huge
and horrendous” and he supports initiatives to clear
brush and conduct more prescribed burns. But Tues-
day he was in Redmond to learn more about what
offi cials need to fi ght wildfi re when it appears in the
Cascades and the High Desert.
The tour included a visit to the Northwest Incident
Support Cache, a 40,000-square-foot warehouse that
stores equipment needed for the fi re season. Kristo-
pher Strong, assistant manager for the cache, said a
challenge this year has been staffi ng the facility. He
currently has 20 workers compared to a typical year
of 40 to 60 employees. Part of that is realigning staff
assignments and part is the diffi culty in getting new
workers to come through the door.
“I have advertised these positions more than any
other year we have ever done, but it seems like no one
is coming in to hand in applications,” said Strong.
Strong told Bentz another challenge is the size of
the facility. He needs a 130,000-square-foot facility to
improve effi ciency and cut costs.
Bentz said with Washington, D.C., being more aware
of fi res in the West, now is the time for fi re offi cials to
push for more money to improve facilities.
“We have two U.S. senators who are in a position to
help,” Bentz told Strong. “With summer coming and
possibly one of the worst fi re seasons, you would be in
a good position to ask again.”
In another area of the facility, Bentz was briefed by
fi re offi cials on what to expect from this fi re season.
“For our seasonal outlook we are in a pretty critical
drought,” said Kevin Stock, a fi re management offi cer
for the Deschutes National Forest.
them to Fagan’s staff, said Pastor Mark
Knutson of the Augustana Lutheran
Church in Portland.
“We hope to get the go ahead by
early fall, which will give us almost 10
months to get 140,000 signatures to ...
place them both on the November 2022
general election ballot,” Knutson said.
The debate over guns is being resur-
rected as the number of mass shootings
climbs again in America, with increased
efforts to ban assault rifl es and large-
capacity magazines.
In Colorado, a gun storage bill was
signed into law on April by Gov. Jared
Polis, who said: “It’s a sensible measure
to help avoid immeasurable heart-
break.”
Colorado’s law creates the offense of
unlawful storage of a fi rearm if a person
stores a gun knowing that a juvenile
could access it without permission or if
a resident of the premises is ineligible to
possess a fi rearm.
Similar bills this session have failed
in Illinois, Kentucky, Montana, New
Mexico and Virginia, said Allison Ander-
man, senior counsel at the Giffords gun
safety advocacy group.
States that have passed laws requir-
ing some level of fi rearms safe storage
in past years include California, Con-
necticut and New York, Anderman said.
Massachusetts is the only state that
requires that all unattended fi rearms
be stored with locking devices in place,
according to Giffords.
EASTERN OREGON
2021
PHOTO CONTEST
Official Rules:
Photo Contest open now and closes at
11:59 pm Sunday, June 20, 2021.
Staff will choose the top 10. The public can
vote online for People’s Choice from 12:01
am Monday, June 21 through 11:59 pm
Thursday, June 30.
Digital or scanned photos only, uploaded
to the online platform. No physical copies.
Only photographers from Oregon may
participate.
The contest subject matter is wide open but
we’re looking for images that capture life
in Eastern Oregon.
Submit all photos
online at:
Entrants may crop, tone, adjust saturation
and make minor enhancements, but may
not add or remove objects within the
frame, or doctor images such that the final
product doesn’t represent what’s actually
before the camera.
The winners will appear in the July 8th
edition of Go Magazine; the top 25 will
appear online.
Gift cards to a restaurant of your choice
will be awarded for first, second and third
place.
bakercictyherald.com/photocontest