FRIDAY • June 4, 2021 • Serving Central Oregon since 1903 • $1.50
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WILDFIRE SEASON
Massive lightning strikes are top concern
BY GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
A statewide swath of lightning
strikes is the “trigger event” that most
worries state fire officials planning for
what could be a second consecutive
severe fire season.
Lightning strikes are “a typical
event that we have on an annual ba-
sis that gives me most concern,” said
Doug Grafe, the Oregon Department
of Forestry fire chief.
Grafe and other state fire, emer-
gency, environmental and health offi-
cials held a press call Thursday to lay
out strategies to try to keep 2021 from
looking like 2020.
Firefighters plan for the worst and
hope for the best. Sometimes they get
a nightmare like the Labor Day 2020
fires that burned over 1 million acres
in Oregon, destroyed thousands of
homes and left 11 dead.
The fires also sent billows of ash
that filled the Willamette Valley.
Winds drove the toxic flow eastward
that for a few days made the air qual-
ity in Sisters and Pendleton the worst
in the world.
Oregon is still digging out from
those fires that broke out amid the
COVID-19 pandemic.
On the Thursday press call, leading
emergency, fire and health officials
talked about improvements since last
year: better warning systems, an ini-
tial wave of 30 aircraft with better in-
strumentation to see flame through
smoke, pre-positioned fire crews and
federal agency assets that are in Or-
egon because they never went home
last year.
An air-quality blog will give faster
readings on where air quality is be-
coming dangerous. In light of the
2020 fires, the state is adding more
Spanish language materials to reach
communities that may not be plugged
into the existing fire warning systems.
See Fire season / A4
GRADUATION SEASON
Emerson Avenue in Bend
Teen survives
addiction and
trauma to
earn diploma
CLEAN UP SLATED
Jaidra Miles still in awe that
she graduated high school
BY JACKSON HOGAN
The Bulletin
Editor’s note: This is part of a series of articles about
exceptional high school graduates in the class of 2021
across Central Oregon.
Her childhood was so bleak, that Jaidra
Miles thought she’d never finish high school.
She grew up with a single mother who
could barely afford to pay the bills. By age
12, Miles began using drugs, eventually
leading to multiple charges and court-man-
dated rehab, she said. And Miles flunked out
of school during her freshman year at Crook
County High School.
But now, Miles, 17, is living a sober life
in Prineville. And in February, she officially
graduated as part of the class of 2021 for
Prineville’s alternative high school, Pioneer
High School, over a year ahead of schedule.
“Sometimes, I don’t believe that I did it,”
Miles said of graduating. “If I told 13-year-
old me that I was going to be where I am
now, I would’ve said, ‘That’s a joke.’”
See Grad / A4
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Dawn Kane, 49, pauses for a moment to think when asked where she is going to move to next while talking to The Bulletin outside her tent along
NE Emerson Avenue in Bend on Thursday .
BY BRENNA VISSER
The Bulletin
I
n the last nine months, Dawn Kane
has made her home out of a blue and
green tent off the side of Emerson
Avenue in Bend.
The 49-year-old Kane moved to the
area after spending roughly 10 years liv-
ing on Bureau of Land Management land
near Redmond in the hopes of being
closer to services. It worked — Kane qual-
ified for a housing voucher in November.
But after more than six months, she has
yet to be placed in a home because there
are none available in Central Oregon,
she said. And now, the city of Bend will
be telling her to pack up and leave Em-
erson Avenue. This is because the Bend
City Council gave City Manager Eric King
the authority Wednesday to move people
out of the right of way when camps are
deemed “unsafe.”
“I just haven’t had the best luck in the
world as far as things coming my way,” she
said. “When good things happen, they go
away.”
See Homeless / A6
Heckathorn appointed Jefferson County sheriff
BY GARRETT ANDREWS
The Bulletin
Heckathorn
TODAY’S
WEATHER
Jefferson County commis-
sioners interviewed finalists
for sheriff at Wednesday’s
meeting and in the end, voted
to promote Undersheriff Marc
Heckathorn to the top post.
Partly sunny
High 85, Low 48
Page B5
Outgoing Sheriff Jim Ad-
kins, 57, announced in April
he would step down this sum-
mer.
Heckathorn’s first day will be
July 1. He will earn $98,000 per
year as sheriff.
Following Adkins’
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retirement announcement,
the county held an open ap-
plication period that yielded
packets from three inter-
ested people. Heckathorn, 45,
and Jefferson County Sher-
iff’s Office Cpl. Jason Pol-
lack were named finalists
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and interviewed in person by
the commissioners. Jackson
County Sheriff’s Office dep-
uty Ian Lance did not make
the cut, with commissioners
speaking in favor of hiring a
local candidate.
Bend City Council
votes to oppose
crude oil by rail
BY BRENNA VISSER
The Bulletin
The Bend City Council officially opposes
crude oil coming through the city by rail,
though the resolution passed by the council
is largely symbolic.
On Wednesday, the council unanimously
adopted a resolution that takes a stand
against oil trains moving through Bend due
to the safety and environmental risks.
The resolution does not mean oil trains
are banned from Bend — cities aren’t able to
do that, according to city staff. But what the
resolution does do is join several other cit-
ies in Oregon to put pressure on the federal
government to instill more regulations for
oil traveling by train.
“It’s important for us as one of many cities
to come together with this message,” Mayor
Sally Russell said in the council’s meeting
Wednesday.
See Sheriff / A4
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See Oil / A4
The Bulletin
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Vol. 117, No. 329, 18 pages, 2 sections
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City cites safety and health concerns ; homeless advocates call policy ‘inhumane’
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