OREGON — Fire crews dropped 620,000 gallons of water on the Beachie Creek Fire while it was still small and confined to a remote part of the Opal Creek Wilderness. But they also went nine days without dropping any water, never used fire retardant, and didn’t engage the fire on the ground, according to U.S. Forest Service records. The records, released after a Freedom of Information Act request, detail the early response to a fire that stayed small for almost three weeks before exploding Labor Day night. The records bring a new level of detail to the question of whether the Forest Service could have extinguished a fire that contributed to one of the biggest calamities in Oregon history. …Critics of the Forest Service response say the agency could have stayed more aggressive when the fire went quiet. [We respect the copyrights of the source publication – full access may require a subscription]