The Cedar Creek Fire that started August 1 in west-central Oregon was already very large at 27,512 acres on the morning of Thursday September 8. But as a result of dry, windy weather on the following two days when a mapping aircraft was over the fire at 10 p.m. Saturday it had more than tripled in size to 85,900 acres. That night the blaze was about 5 miles northeast of Oakridge.
Most of the growth was to the west, driven by strong easterly winds and dry fuels. Saturday evening while winds were from the west, firefighters on the western flank completed strategic burning operations near Eagle Butte, 5 miles northeast of Oakridge. The fire remained north of Highway 58, south of Forest Road 19, and east of Eagle Butte.
The incident management team says 2,230 homes and 443 commercial structures remain threatened, but none have been reported as destroyed. The Office of the Oregon State Fire Marshal has committed seven task forces and an incident management team to the incident.
Saturday evening resources committed to the fire included 17 hand crews, 53 engines, and 8 helicopters for a total of 994 personnel. The estimated suppression costs so far are $47 million.
In the satellite photo below the Cedar Fire is producing the smoke seen in the lower portion of the image.
And as usual, Oregon burns why the policy makers and public continue to fiddle with regards 150 years of rapacious irresponsible logging and a fossil fuel industry that will keep going until that last drop of oil is extracted and burned.
Really don’t need much of an education to figure out east winds always come to the west side within the first two weeks of sept. why would any reasonable person or “fire teams” sit on a fire for a month and not take more aggressive action on a fire 15 miles from the city of Oakridge, Given the facts of the fires last year in Glide, Mckenzie, and Detroit. Majority of the folks are still misplaced. Retardant drops certainly might have helped during the first several days. This is the second consecutive year that many folks in Oakridge had to evacuate leave their homes and leave town. I worked for forest service for 36 years and fought numerous fires the “mantra” used to be “fight fires safely and aggressively” I wonder what the results of the fire would have been had we done nothing at all? Which is about what happened. Need a thorough review and investigation of the decisions made and who made them.
Wondering what would happen if we had done “nothing at all” is not productive, other than to rehash the bumper-sticker defense made by old-school USFS managers when they resisted abandoning the war model (“full suppression”) of wildfire management — the very one-size-fits-all model whose promulgation for mucho decades significantly contributed to setting the table for today’s conflagatory dining.
Although Andy MAY have meant something that I would not agree with, either, I chose to read his comment as suggesting something that I have agreed with for 31 years — that there were other fire management actions that we might have taken, pursuant to other fire management policies based on better understanding of region and forest type specific fire ecology, that might have been better bangs for our bucks, including for ecological health and human safety.
However, I do agree that to have merely begun to act from that approach as an immediate response to the Cedar Creek Fire ignition would have been a Fool’s Errand. That paradigm shift in wildfire management should have begun decades ago, even before the Warner Creek Fire Recovery Project brought the cry for it into full volume and provided the excellent opportunity to launch it.
The question is:
What are we going to do about that now?
A return to a policy of “fight fires safely and aggressively” would be like using cauterization to try to heal third-degree burns.
Absolutely right that we should become educated, there should be more efforts to prevent fires, but I also have a story for you…
There once was a person who was given no options in life. That person decided to go on to a bachelor’s degree, and eventually a master’s degree, studied epidemiology, biostatistics, medical science, business, human resources, science, and yes, fire science, and graduated with honors. When that person applied for jobs with the county and state, that person was told that they only work with certain types of people and that person should stop applying. That person was a white female, and it was me.
Now suddenly the fact that we have don’t have enough qualified and educated firefighters in Oregon will hopefully make more sense…
What ultra-invaluable data would we now have and be able to further obtain with which to have already revolutionarily informed our wildland fire management policies and strategies for the better, and now be able to even more so do — had the landscape-level W.A.R.N.E.R. proposal coining the term “fireshed” been embraced, perfected, and adopted 28 years ago?
It anticipated an event like this would occur there within a time frame alone justifying its implementation (but not alone by a wide margin justifying it.)
I grieve.
Kenops wimped.
The R6 Assistant Regional Forester for “Natural Resources”, a dude known as the strong-arming “Super-Supervisor” of the R6 National Forests (whose name I thought I would never forget, but its “D” is still on my tongue, just as is the image in my mind of his retirement party) made it clear “no way are you taking those acres out of the General Forest inventory” (not with his voice, but with his smug eyes) as he sat across the table in the Regional Office conference room in 1999, next to the shiny-shoed, Brigham Young suited, interim Regional Forester who smiled while saying that it was too bad that the ahead-of-its-time proposal had not been adopted 5 years ago, when there were plenty of funds to support its creation and implementation, because now budgets are super tight — gonna’ have to do some painful layoffs — “but those funds will be available for the upcoming Forest Plan Revision, so I promise you it will be fully analyzed in it” (a revision at that time was already to have begun, and still a distant star.)
Right, no funds. (Interesting juxtapositioning. “To my right, here — ”, he should have said . . because) “D” had been the guy that had torpedoed the Northwest Forest Plan’s Sensitive and Endangered Species “Survey and Manage” provisions by stealing its funds to plan timber sales, and now the agency had been court-ordered to do the effing surveys. (Imagine that! I noticed that “D” did not volunteer his job nor salary to help cover the hit — quite the opposite — a few years later, he retired with a full-fat pension and an R6-budgeted, super expensive retirement party attended by USFS who’s who’s on a huge yacht. Of course.)
OK, maybe I don’t only grieve.
Kind of hard for people to be educated when a certain group of people are banning books and stifling education. In my few years of firefighting, I read every book I could get on fire science, forest ecology, and the changing climate. To say the knowledge helped me is an understatement.
Back to the basics…anchor and flank.
LOGGING
Back to old school 2 for 1
Plant 2 trees for every felling this will help to diminish the kindling/under brush that fuels the fire
In part, I agree with you. Being a mill brat from the earlier years, I feel there’s more to it. What is replanted and how harvest (clear cut/select cut/other?) takes place. When you bulldoze your way uncut everything down, leave hundreds of acres bare with reforestation all what they want to cut down next time (not native mix) you get a recipe for disaster. Anybody who’s hiked in an untouched forest gets the whole picture. The symbiotic relationship that happens. Different trees, different ages create a healthy habitat. Same trees all planted the same time grow too thick and don’t create the same habitat. Yes, climate change, shifting winds, changing seasons, etc all factor in as well. In my opinion.
Interesting comments. Same problems and questions we’ve always had, except the situation is more dire than it has ever been. We often forget that many organizations have a long record of successfully using both prescribed fires and managed wildfires to reduce fuels, but we have done a poor job of adapting their strategies and tactics for other parts of the country and other organizations (take a look at the Northern Rockies section of today’s Sit Report to see the potential of managing fire smarter). The challenges may be greater in other parts of the west, but the same principles apply. Unfortunately we do a poor job of training Fire Managers and Line Officers in anything except S courses, and our culture is very conservative and resistant to change. The politics certainly don’t help, but we have the means to change if we want to.
AD#3
Tradition in my line of work is everything. Being an old smokejumper it is all about the glory and the mindset of being far superior than every other firefighter known to man. What’s the difference between a Smokejumper and God, I ask “no what is the difference”, “Well God doesn’t think he is a smokejumper”. This is very true “the top guns” of wildland give me a break. Anyway I work for the forest service and the place is riddled with, 1. Poor communication 2. Objectives unclear or never met 3. Collaboration is non existent 4. and Finally the lack of empowerment. Pretty much getting siloed and put out to pasture.
Lately I’ve found myself asking the Fire Management Officer or my supervisor what we are going to do with all this unhealthy forest? His response was “that’s not my department” Oh so Fuels isn’t part of the fire triangle anymore? I’m not impressed, at least he could have said well what do you recommend? Poor Management is a driving factor on recruiting and retaining forest service firefighters, the lack of fair pay and the shut up and dig mentality doesn’t work anymore. These are your kids that don’t want to work; get them off the couch. As I’m writing this the town of Oakridge, Oregon is evacuated and the Cedar Creek Fire is ripping and is unchecked. Fire managers just sit and wait for the fire to go ballistic and then hit the alarm for help. I think they should take this course EMGT-403 Community Risk Reduction, and learn about all-risk and how to operate in a larger capacity with FEMA, and other entities. Education and Technology could make the job easier but they don’t know any better. They just sent the “hotshots” up to do the real work.
The last part of the Scenario is Science is not being utilized with technology. I think science needs to be addressed, most fire managers don’t have an education above high school. How are these folks managing complex ecosystems of fire, timber, recreation. The federal government must require education and training to put the wildfires out or just evacuate and don’t spend a trillion dollars on a fire.
Excited College Professional learning how to manage risk.
References:
https://vimeo.com/696775450 (Links to an external site.)
Elemental Film
https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/style-and-usage/causes-of-poor-writing-and-communication-in-the-workplace.html (Links to an external site.)
Siloing or Workplace causes and solutions
It would behoove all in the LMA world to learn Risk Mgmt and take a few EMI course by FEMA…..but beware alot of EM doesn’t fully understand how ICS and ICS Typing works and a few I worked with thought everything was a Type VI…..
Get cracking on studyin!!
https://vimeo.com/696775450
EAST WIND
This seems to be a theme, fires start in the wilderness and they try to “corral them”. This type of strategy is not working in Oregon. I’m thinking non of the fire managers read the synthesis for extreme fire behavior I brought up months ago about the east wind becoming more common. My smokejumper bro told me he left the Cedar creek fire on Tuesday September the 6th, 2022 and the fire was at 16,000, acres “I said are you still jumping and losing fires??” lol No he said he “was an overhead”. The Cedar creek fire contingency lines built in the east were no match for the head fire it blew right thru. Maybe the educational requirements for FMO’s should be reinstated for the Forest Service. The DOI has higher standards to manage the land. This usually requires most current science and education not given to feds in s or Skills classes (S-190). Also we are not diagnosing the problem, then given a prognosis we are just saying we (fire managers) that lose fires cant do anything. Science is real people, take a class in fire ecology maybe..
One doesn’t need a college education to realize that the plan wasn’t or wouldn’t work under and East wind event. On the ground experience should tell you that. The agency just can’t let go of what we have always done, and continue to do until there is a fundamental change in how we manage fire on the landscape, and that doesn’t mean suppression of every start. We are still working on the archaic plan of smother large fires with money, and wondering why year after year we are suffering the same outcomes. We will now spend another 47 million on Cedar Creek, burn more acres, tear up more ground, expose more firefighters… and it will rain, it will go out and then we will have meetings this fall on how well we all did, how we need to change things and do it better. The next year, right back to doing the same ol things. Culture needs to change, and that doesn’t change over the winter.
Here for the popcorn and peanut gallery
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Apparently you do need a college education and experience to manage wildfires, and prescribed burning for that matter. I think science and experience is the best case in fire from an ecological standpoint. How many Fmo’s know what silviculture means? How many Fmo’s have taken wilderness management classes (non). How many have gone thru community risk reduction for all risk incidents? Thank you for your counter intuitive response; to manage the forest better. Maybe think positively??
Use current science and education of land management.
Yus thanks Rose you English major you.
How would the footprint of this fire, which is at 0% containment today, be different had $0 been spent on “suppression?”
C’mon, Andy, you know better than that. Even IF this fire had been managed for objectives other than suppression (which it has NOT), that would still require spending and incurring costs. Managing fires still takes planning, people, and resources. To say anything less is disingenuous.
Ok, $0.00 has been spent on “suppression” and $47M+ has been spent on some combination of control/confine/contain. Feel better???
The reason for 0% contain is that this fire has jumped the control/confine/contain lines. Should I feel better?
To be clear, this is exactly what was expected — dry east winds over the Cascades create uncontrollable, containable, unconfineable fire conditions. How were the lessons of 2020 applied in 2022?
Well, the towns of Oakridge and Westfir were evacuated quickly, for starters. Resources from many other areas were called in — but they were called back by their home units as fire danger indices rose last week.
Oregon fires
In the past three decades, Wildfire suppression costs have gone up some 500 – 600% because we have seen the largest and most destructive wildfires over the same time span. From what I have learned here, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This topic has been hashed out numerous times on “Wildfire Today;” look for past articles. To be brief of what I recall: Educate, educate & educate people living in wildfire prone areas about defensible space. “An Authority or Group” then surveys urban – wilderness areas and/or boundaries to develop a needs graded assessment of limited manpower and resources (aka $) to perform defensible space work. Establish a Lottery system to randomly select priority projects for resource deployment. Establish an consistent and ongoing method for funding defensible space projects into the future. My 2 cents.
My friends applied for a ground clearing grant around their hse near the Rum Creek fire and it did nothing to stop the loss they just incurred from that fire. The area at Clear Creek fire is some of the most rugged OR has to offer. It is difficult to log let alone try to clear under brush. Besides this fire was lightning caused something no one can plan for. Suppression doesn’t always help as I have seen around here lately. Fires are unpredictable and jump easily to other areas. Recent winds only escalate fires.
I do not believe anyone has suggested a 100% solution to wildfires. The other thing mentioned on this site is the need for “Wildfire Insurance” similar to the Gulf Flood Insurance program. Again, not perfect but it could help families completely wiped out via wildfire. Oh, and there are lots of comments on actual Compensation for Professional Wild Firefighters as well, since fire season is becoming a year round problem.
We should be slash burning the forest floor to prevent mega fires in the first place.
Yeah, and raking too, David, that’s important.
Totally agree. Taking care of the forest doesn’t mean leaving it alone to do it’s thing. Because “it’s thing” is an eventual forest fire that can become massive. Taking care of the forest means maintaining parts of it so there is not a bunch of fallen trees and overgrown underbrush. We can maintain the forest so it is less of a fire hazard but still allows for plenty natural ecosystems for the animals that live in it.
Andy, stimulated by your leading-off comment here, 2 days ago (9/12, 2:42pm) I posted in reaction, but apparently hit the wrong button because it does not appear as a “reply”, but instead down-thread.