SPORTS A6
NATION A5
STATE A3
Baker cross-country
teams off to strong start
NASA delays launch
of moon rocket
3 dead in shooting
in Bend Safeway
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IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • HOME & LIVING • SPORTS
TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2022 • $1.50
5 fires
burning in
Eagle Cap
Wilderness
QUICK HITS
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Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to Herald
subscriber Ronald Waltman of
Baker City.
KICKOFF
’22
But Forest Service monitoring,
rather than fighting, the blazes
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
INSIDE | Powell set for his time in the
limelight as linchpin of Baker’s defense.
INSIDE TODAY
—————
Football kickoff section
includes previews from Baker,
Pine Eagle and Huntington,
along with other regional high
schools and Eastern Oregon
University.
Casey Taylor/Contributed Photo
New siding has been installed at the National Historic Oregon Trail
Interpretive Center. Additional work includes new windows, doors
and an HVAC system. The renovations are expected to reduce
energy consumption by 73%.
LOCAL, A2
—————
The benefi ts provided by
four giant hydroelectric dams
on the Snake River must be
replaced before the dams can
be breached to save endan-
gered salmon runs, according to
a fi nal report issued Thursday,
Aug. 25 by Washington Gov.
Jay Inslee and Washington U.S.
Sen. Patty Murray.
BRIEFING
—————
Emily Black graduates
from Pacifi c
FOREST GROVE — Emily
Grace Black of Baker City
recently earned a bachelor of
arts degree in economics from
Pacifi c University.
‘Shiny
and new’
Renovations continue
at Interpretive Center
BY LISA BRITTON
lbritton@bakercityherald.com
W
Tyler Thomas delegate
to Angus Convention
SALT LAKE CITY — Tyler
Austin Thomas of Baker City
has been elected as a delegate
to the 139th American Angus
Association Convention of
Delegates set for Nov. 7 at the
Salt Palace Convention Center
in Salt Lake City.
ork is “on track” at the Na-
tional Historic Oregon Trail
Interpretive Center, which is
closed for an energy-efficient
upgrade.
The renovation began in March 2022,
and hasn’t been affected much by supply
issues, said Sarah Sherman, project man-
ager.
“Hopefully that will continue,” she said.
The center, which is 30 years old and
30,000 square feet, is getting new siding, in-
sulation, roofing, windows and doors.
The $6.5 million remodel, funded in part
by the Great Americans Outdoor Act, is ex-
pected to reduce energy consumption by
73%.
The center is managed by the Bureau of
Land Management.
WEATHER
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Today
95/50
“We want to be good stewards of our nat-
ural resources,” said Vale District manager
Wayne Monger, whose office oversees the
center. “This design utilizes high thermal
insulation value materials and high effi-
ciency heating and cooling technology to
counter energy demands during summer
and winter.”
Work is about one-third finished.
Sherman describes it as “facelift” because
much of the work won’t be obvious to visi-
tors.
“Structurally, it will be the same, but
shiny and new,” she said.
So far, construction has included new in-
sulation and a new roof. The next projects
focus on new siding, windows, doors and
lights.
The HVAC system is expected to take the
most time.
See Eagle Cap / A3
Crockets Knob
forest fire
keeps growing
Baker City Herald
See Renovations / A3
Sunny
Wednesday
A temporary
HVAC system
is in place and
vents for the
new system
have been
created near
the entrance
to the
Oregon Trail
Interpretive
Center.
97/50
Sunny
The space below is for a postage label
for issues that are mailed.
Forest Service officials are monitoring
five lightning-sparked fires in the Eagle
Cap Wilderness with the intention of let-
ting the blazes burn naturally.
The agency has employed that strat-
egy for more than 30 fires over the past
quarter century in the Eagle Cap, which
at 365,000 acres is Oregon’s biggest federal
wilderness.
It’s also the place Forest Service officials
have most often allowed lightning fires to
burn themselves out.
That’s not a coincidence.
The Eagle Cap not only is bigger than
either Multnomah or Hood River county,
but the wilderness has areas where fires,
rather than turning rapidly into confla-
grations that threaten people and prop-
erty, tend to grow slowly, often because
there are natural barriers, such as out-
crops of rock, that help keep the flames
contained.
Moreover, Forest Service officials say,
the fires typically help rather than harm
the forest, in particular by reducing the
fuel loading and making it less likely that
a future fire will spread fast.
“The Eagle Cap is a very large, very in-
tact wilderness that we can use to learn
more about how fire behaves and how
it benefits the resources,” said Anthony
Botello, deputy supervisor for the Wal-
lowa-Whitman National Forest, which
manages the wilderness.
Sarah Sherman/
Contributed Photo
About 100 more people arrived over
the weekend to work on the Crockets
Knob fire on the Malheur National Forest
about 19 miles north of Prairie City.
The blaze, sparked by lightning on
Aug. 22, is the biggest burning in North-
eastern Oregon, estimated at 1,632 acres
on Monday morning, Aug. 29.
The fire, burning in a remote area of the
Greenhorn Mountains north of the Middle
Fork John Day River, was 0% contained.
A community meeting with updates
about progress on the fire is set for Tues-
day, Aug. 30 at 6 p.m. To view a live
stream of the meeting, go to www.face-
book.com/CrocketsKnobFire (a Face-
book account isn’t needed to watch).
A total of 352 people are assigned to
the fire, up from 258 at the start of the
weekend.
The fire is primarily in the area burned
in the Summit fire in 1996. Since then
the burned area has been recolonized by
dense stands of young lodgepole pines,
some up to about 20 feet tall, as well as
snowbrush patches 4 to 10 feet tall that
are difficult for firefighters to get through.
See Crockets Knob / A3
Reprieve was brief: Heat wave could last through Labor Day
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
After a brief reprieve, the heat has
returned to Baker County.
The coolest weekend in almost 2
months surrendered to the latest in
a nearly summer-long series of heat
waves, one that’s forecast to persist
into, and perhaps beyond, the Labor
Day weekend.
And like previous torrid spells, this
one has the potential to break daily
temperature records.
The modest cooldown over the
TODAY
Issue 47
68 pages
weekend, however, might block the
current month’s bid to become the
hottest August on record at the Baker
City Airport.
August is almost certain, though,
to finish in the top four based on tem-
perature records that date to 1943.
The high temperature at the air-
port on Saturday, Aug. 27 was 77 de-
grees. That was the coolest day since
the Fourth of July, when the high was
74. It was also just the fourth day since
June 25 when the temperature didn’t
reach at least 80 at the airport. Satur-
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day was also the first sub-80-degree
day during August — and it’s all but
sure to be the only one.
In the 66 days since June 25, the
temperature has been 90 or hotter on
more than half — 35 days.
That includes 19 days from Aug. 1-29.
Until the comparatively balmy
weekend — highs of 77 and 80 on
Aug. 27 and 28 — August was on pace
to be the hottest ever, surpassing Au-
gust 2017, when the average high was
91.7 degrees.
Through Aug. 28, the average was
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90.6 degrees, which would rank as the
fifth-hottest.
However, based on the National
Weather Service’s forecast for the final
3 days of the month, this August will
end up with an average high of 91.1.
That would rank third, behind 2018
and 2022 (91.2-degree average).
As for daily records, Wednesday,
Aug. 31 is the day most likely to have
a new record. The National Weather
Service is forecasting a high of 100 de-
grees, which would break the current
record of 96, set in 2019.
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