Wildfire! 9-15-2012

Wildfire!

I’m interrupting the Yellowstone series as I thought this would be of interest now and not so much in mid-winter.

So, this is current – written September 15^th.  We are in Sisters, Oregon.  It’s a picturesque town of 2,083 souls in the beautiful high desert of central Oregon.  I was here 10 years ago, loved it and have been waiting for a chance to return.  One look and Bob loved it here also, so plans to trek on to Trinidad were scrapped.  Trinidad, California is the town we loved last year.  Just fickle, I guess.

I learned about fire in the high desert last time I was here.  2002 was the year of the Cache Mountain fire, the last really big fire year in Sisters.  Of course, all of us in town then knew there was wildfire nearby and moving towards Black Butte Ranch.  BBR, as it’s known here, is a private community of expensive vacation homes situated amid huge ponderosa pine around a golf course.   For days we had been watching the planes dropping their loads of orange fire retardant and helicopters making trips back and forth with swinging buckets of water.  Aside from that, things were pretty normal in town – until the fire jumped the road and got into the ranch.  We all knew that exact moment.  Sirens in the distance, then louder and suddenly every fire truck from every town within 50 miles was screaming one after the other, through town and out towards Black Butte.  That night the trucks were all parked in the streets near the fire house and the firefighters set up a make-shift camp across the street in the park.

10 years later a lot of things have changed.  Bob and I are here in our motorhome staying in a park just outside of Sisters.  I had made a trip to Los Angeles to see children and grandchildren, so I was pretty far away when Bob called last Sunday.  He had been at church in nearby Bend (25 miles away) on a beautiful clear morning.  As he came out of church, he saw a plume, a pure white plume in the blue sky.  It was growing visibly as he drove.  Can’t be Sisters, he thought.  But it was and it was close and it was bad.

The Pole Creek Fire

White smoke means a hot fire.  Later, we learned that this fire started in a “perfect storm”.  The forest is tinder dry.  Walking through it, you can see puffs of dust around your feet.  The duff on the ground – sticks and dead brush – crumble in your fingers.   And there is so much deadwood in the forest from the years since the destructive mountain pine beetle first appeared there.  It seemed that seven of every 10 trees were dead.  And it was hot.  A cold front carrying a trough of wind came through Saturday night.  The fire experts here said they knew all the elements were there.  All that was needed was a spark.  And Sunday morning, near Pole Creek, there was a spark.  Not from lightening, but maybe from one of the campers in the area.  No one has been injured, but many were evacuated, and in the wilderness area, four cars were incinerated.  (This preceding intelligence was obtained by Bob in an interview of a senior fire official at the Three Creeks Brewery.  Good work, Bob.)

There were ominous clouds over the park and ash was falling everywhere.

Bob began packing up the motorhome, but the people in the park assured him that it was safe to stay.  A sprinkler system ringed the park and firefighters were on their way.  And were they ever!  They are “bivouacked” in the Sisters rodeo arena right next to us.  Seemingly overnight, a city has sprung up.

There are now 850 as of this morning.  Wow.  That’s 850 people added to a town of 2,083!  It looks deserted during the day, but at dusk they begin rolling in and the line seems endless – trucks, vans, buses, and huge water trucks – 25, 30, or ?.  And bulldozers and other road building equipment, a propane truck and trucks that we can’t begin to name -- all the work vehicles, plus everything needed to care for all these firefighters.  The sea of tents and trailers goes from one side to the other of the grass parking area that serves the rodeo once a year.  The command center is at the forestry office in town and there is one advance fire camp closer in, but all else is here.   It boggles the mind!  It is a little war they are fighting out here at the drop of a hat.   A bit different from the Black Butte fire I saw 10 years ago.

There are information officers at many points in town with maps to keep the townspeople informed.   As of today, 12,000 acres have burned.  It will continue to burn up North Sisters Mountain until it runs out of fuel and dies on its own.  That is the best case scenario.  The cost of this fire is from a half million to a million dollars a day and that will hold only if no further personnel are needed and they don’t call the planes back.   They flew all night the first night, but then were called to the Wenatchee fire in Washington that threatened the town.

We went out last night.  Of course, the last thing they need is a couple tourists to rescue, so access to areas close to the fire are tightly controlled.  But the red glow on the horizon is easily visible from the road and Bob was able to get these stunning pictures.

While we were out, rain drops began to fall, a puzzle as no rain was forecast at all.  I checked the weather map on my phone and the only rain was in a tight circle around Sisters.  Then lightening began to flash.  I suspected what was going on, but did not find out until this morning that the smoke plume was causing this.  It has now reached 28,000 feet and is capable of producing its own weather.  So, now lightening .  Several small fires were started by it and have to be dealt with now.

- Pole Creek Fire’s 28,000 ft. plume shot from 25 miles away -

No one is making predictions anymore about when this is likely to end.