Category Archives: Forest Fires

The following is a proposal for changes in how we deal with fire in southwestern Oregon. Stop reacting to wildfire ignitions and take the initiative to actively manage fire. Fuel treatments must greatly increase. Controlled burn, chip, masticate, thin-pile-burn, all of it. Staff both fire suppression and fuels treatment with well-trained, well-paid crews, with meteorologists and other specialists. Burn understories in mixed conifer forests. It has worked for millennia. Do it on days when unstable atmospheric conditions lift the smoke away. Do it in strategic locations that will actually meet wildfire where it is most likely to occur. Do it to restore forest resilience. But do it. Zoning must be based on science. Building codes must be based on science. Funding for fire research must be stable and plentiful. We need answers.

LOS ANGELES — Authorities lifted evacuation orders as firefighters made progress Sunday on a large blaze that sent thousands fleeing homes and farms northwest of Los Angeles. Crews working in steep terrain were tamping down hotspots and keeping an eye on lingering gusts in mountain areas that could carry embers, said Ventura County Fire Capt. Steve Kaufmann. “I’d say we’re cautiously optimistic,” Kaufmann said, citing calmer winds overall and rising humidity levels. Firefighters have contained 70% of the blaze known as the Maria fire, which has burned nearly 15 square miles (39 sq. kilometers) of dry brush and timber. Three buildings were destroyed. More than 11,000 people evacuated after the flames spread Oct. 31 during dry winds that fanned fires across the state this fall.

PORT TOWNSEND — Firefighters from East Jefferson County are helping to make progress against the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, Calif. The blaze, which has consumed 76,825 acres since it began Oct. 23, was reportedly 60 percent contained Thursday, according to the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Two of the crew members fighting the blaze are from East Jefferson Fire-Rescue (EJFR) and a third is from Port Ludlow Fire & Rescue. They are part of a regional strike team from Puget Sound that includes personnel from the Bainbridge Island Fire Department, Central Kitsap Fire & Rescue, North Kitsap Fire Rescue and South Kitsap Fire and Rescue.

Twenty-two wildfires were sparked Tuesday and Wednesday by high winds and dry conditions across northern Oregon. Four of the wildfires grew to larger sizes, including blazes near Detroit, Gates, Molalla and Sheridan, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry.  Fire teams are actively fighting the blazes, but none have threatened structures or led to road closures at this time, officials said. The fires are officially under investigation, but the suspected cause in the majority of cases is that old slash burns — typically woody debris from logging operations — that were kicked up by the high and dry conditions.  “The majority would have been slash piles lit previously, sometimes weeks ago, when conditions were good for burning,” Oregon Department of Forestry spokeswoman Bobbi Doan said. “Burning slash piles wasn’t allowed yesterday and today.”

More than one million Californians were in the dark on Wednesday in the third wave of blackouts by Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., a utility facing rising public anger over its desperate efforts to prevent its equipment from triggering more fires. Some residents have been without electricity for four days due to a previous shutoff over the weekend. In the northern wine country, firefighters on Tuesday coped with gusts of 48 kilometres an hour while tackling the Kincade Fire, which has burned 189 homes and other structures and charred an area more than twice the size of San Francisco. Meanwhile, ferocious Santa Ana winds returned to Southern California, where a fire that erupted Monday in the tony Brentwood area of Los Angeles has destroyed a dozen homes.

The wind whipped through the flats of Sonoma county on Sunday morning, spreading dry autumn leaves and oily shreds of eucalyptus through the streets of downtown Santa Rosa.  Late the night before, authorities had ordered parts of this north San Francisco Bay area city to evacuate along with much of the surrounding county, as the wind-swept Kincade fire burned eight miles north-east. Debbie, who declined to give her last name, stood in the doorway of her home in Coffey Park that she recently, finally finished rebuilding after it was destroyed by wildfire in 2017. She covered her face with both hands. “I’m not leaving again. This time I’m gonna stay and I’m gonna burn in my house,” she said. “PG&E has not learned anything? Are they trying to kill us?”

With ferocious winds driving multiple wildfires through bone-dry vegetation and nearly 200,000 people ordered to leave their homes, California’s governor declared a statewide emergency Sunday. Meanwhile, millions of residents remained without power after the state’s largest utility cut electricity as a precaution to prevent more areas from igniting. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that officials were deploying “every resource available” to respond to the wildfires, including a large blaze in Northern California’s wine country powered by gusts that reached more than 164 km/h. California Fire officials said Sunday that the fire had grown to burn over 220 square kilometres. At least 94 structures have been destroyed. In the San Francisco Bay Area, two grass fires briefly halted traffic on an Interstate bridge. …In the south, a wildfire in the Santa Clarita area near Los Angeles destroyed 18 structures. 

A wind-driven wildfire that forced some 2,000 people to flee homes in Northern California’s wine country on Thursday erupted near the base of a damaged high-voltage transmission tower owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co, utility and fire officials said. The company, a unit of bankrupt holding company PG&E Corp , acknowledged in an “electric safety incident” report to the California Public Utilities Commission that one of its power lines malfunctioned at about the time and location of the fire’s origin on Wednesday night. It said a PG&E technician inspecting the site on Thursday found the area taped off by state fire department personnel who brought to his attention “what appeared to be a broken jumper on the same tower”. …Neither PG&E nor the commission said whether the damaged tower or the malfunctioning transmission line attached to it were suspected of igniting the blaze, dubbed the Kincade fire, which has destroyed about a dozen homes and other structures.

Firefighters were working to gain the upper hand on a windblown brush fire that erupted early Thursday near the San Bernardino National Forest that quickly charred 75 acres, forced road closures and sent residents fleeing from neighborhoods. The Old Water fire ignited just after 2 a.m. near Old Waterman Canyon Road and Highway 18 and began rapidly chewing through dense brush along the hillside abutting neighborhoods. About an hour later, officials began evacuating neighborhoods amid concerns that gusty winds could send the fire moving toward homes at the base of the hillside, said Zach Behrens, a spokesperson for the San Bernardino National Forest. By late morning, roughly 400 firefighters battling the blaze had largely quelled the intense flames that hours earlier had threatened to overwhelm nearby neighborhoods, boosting containment of the fire to 30%.

A fast-moving wildfire aided by powerful winds in Northern California’s wine country has prompted mandatory evacuation orders in Geyserville, an area of Sonoma County 75 miles north of San Francisco. The Kincade Fire had spread to 10,000 acres by early Thursday, with no containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The department issued red flag warnings for the area, a critical alert for when weather conditions such as high heat, low humidity, lightning strikes and strong winds could result in intense and quick-burning fires. The fire started around 9:25 p.m. Wednesday in Geyserville near where Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility, cut power earlier that afternoon amid dangerous weather. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office ordered mandatory evacuations in the area just after midnight.

LOS ANGELES – Firefighters have tightened their grip on a deadly Los Angeles wildfire burning with subdued fury on Sunday after extremely dry desert winds that had stoked the flames gave way to moister, gentler breezes blowing in from the Pacific. The so-called Saddleridge fire, which erupted Thursday night and raced across the northern edge of L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, had scorched nearly 8,000 acres (3,237 hectares) by Sunday but was mostly confined to foothills and canyons away from populated areas, fire officials said. As of Sunday morning, firefighters had managed to carve containment lines around 41% of the fire’s perimeter, more than double the containment level reported a day earlier as authorities lifted all remaining evacuation notices. At the height of the blaze on Friday, authorities had ordered the evacuation of some 23,000 homes, comprising about 100,000 people, as flames invaded several communities in northern Los Angeles.

The 6,100-acre Decker fire on Salida’s doorstep has been declared the nation’s top priority wildfire, putting it first in line for firefighting crews and aircraft. The wildfire, which started from a lightning strike Sept. 8, grew another 230 acres by Sunday morning and remains only 5% contained, according to a Rocky Mountain Incident Command news release. The fire is burning in the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness and has come within two miles of Salida, a city of about 5,200 people in Chaffee County. Along with the return of drought conditions after a wet spring and early summer, crews battled high winds Saturday. …Twenty three hand crews, 28 engines, three dozers, six helicopters, three aircraft and 10 water tenders — a total of 806 firefighters — were assigned to the fire by Sunday morning, according to wildfiretoday.com.

FLAGSTAFF – Fire investigators say the Museum Fire, which burned 1,961 acres near Flagstaff in July, started from a forest-thinning project meant to prevent wildfires. An excavator striking rock sparked the blaze, which forced neighborhoods to evacuate and cost $9 million to control, the U.S. Forest Service reports. In a news release, Laura Jo West, supervisor of the Coconino National Forest, said it was unfortunate the fire was caused by thinning operations, but things could have been worse. The thinning is part of the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project, which is a partnership between the state, Flagstaff and Coconino National Forest to reduce the risk of severe wildfire and post-fire flooding in the Rio de Flag and Lake Mary watersheds. “Fortunately,” West said, “some of the restoration work that had been completed previously in and around the wildfire area actually helped stop the fire from becoming larger and more destructive.”