Landowners file suits against US Forest Service for burning their property during Chetco Bar Fire in Oregon

Chetco Bar Fire July 13, 2017
The Chetco Bar Fire on July 13, 2017 taken from a helicopter during the Type 3 Incident Commander’s first recon flight.

Two lawsuits have been filed in federal court for firing operations that burned private land during the Chetco Bar Fire that eventually burned more than 191,000 acres on land managed by the US Forest Service and private landowners in southwest Oregon.

The suit, under the Tucker Act for inverse condemnation, seeks compensation for “property taken” by the USFS in its use and management of the Chetco Bar Fire. It alleges that between August 17 and 20, 2017 the USFS conducted firing operations on their property “to achieve its natural resource management objectives, and to otherwise manage its lands”.

“USFS employed planned ignitions in the form of large-scale backfires designed to artificially grow the naturally occurring wildfire to sizes much larger than if it has been left to burn naturally,” say the two complaints filed October 21. “The large-scale planned ignitions on the Chetco Bar Fire ignored political and property boundaries and used Plaintiffs’ nonfederal resources as backfire fuel, imposing the costs of the natural resource management objectives upon Plaintiffs.”

The Chetco Bar Fire started from a lightning strike during a storm on June 24 and 25, 2017 and was first reported by an airline pilot 17 days later on July 12.

The attorney representing the landowners is Quentin Rhodes in Missoula, who is not your typical barrister. He worked as a wildland firefighter for eight seasons between 1987 and 1994, serving on the Helena Hotshot crew and later as a smokejumper at West Yellowstone and Missoula. He told Wildfire Today in 2012 that he was in the first planeload of jumpers on the South Canyon Fire in Colorado in 1994, the fatal fire on which 14 wildland firefighters were entrapped and killed. In 2012 he represented owners of a Montana ranch who won a $750,000 judgement against the state of Montana when firefighters on the Ryan Gulch Fire employed firing operations which burned 900 acres of the ranch’s land.

Southwest Oregon and Northwest California — a hotbed of fire activity for at least 20 years

map history of fires in Northwest California and Southwest Oregon
A partial history of fires in Northwest California and Southwest Oregon, 2000 through Sept 17, 2020.

The Northwest California/Southwest Oregon area has kept firefighters very busy at times during the last 20 years, as you can see on the map above.

A new fire is rapidly putting itself into that history. The Slater Fire reported September 8 grew to 89,000 acres by September 9 and has now spread to 150,000 acres. That growth, however, has slowed in the last several days.

It started northeast of Happy Camp, California and ran north into Oregon then took a left and crossed Highway 199. It has come to within about four miles of the 2002 Biscuit Fire.

If recent fire history is any indication, the Slater Fire may not even slow down when and if it reaches the Biscuit burn, and of course it depends on the weather, which has moderated this week. The 2017 Chetco Bar Fire and the 2018 Klondike Fire burned for miles into the then 17 or 18-year old fire scar. The entire eastern two-thirds of the Chetco Bar Fire was in the footprint.

Strong winds that drove the dozens of fires September 8 in Oregon are not super rare. The Klondike Fire west of Grants Pass started July 15, 2018. In early October it had become virtually dormant, but a few hot spots were revitalized by an east wind event on the 14th. According to an article in the Mail Tribune the suddenly vigorous fire was transporting burning embers that started spot fires six miles out ahead of the flaming front:

“Extreme spotting” propelled fine embers up to six miles ahead of the main fire, dropping the live ash right between firefighters’ tents and close to people’s homes.

“We even had to move our own fire camp,”  [information officer Kale] Casey said.

So if the weather this year is anything like it was two years ago, firefighters could be busy in the area for at least another month.

Slater Fire
Slater Fire, Sept. 15, 2020. InciWeb.

Comparing the Haines Index with the Hot-Dry-Windy Index

In a comment on the earlier post about the Hot-Dry-Windy Index (HDW), Brian Potter, a research meteorologist with the U.S. Forest Service, offered to provide some preliminary results looking at how HDW performed during the 2017 Chetco Bar Fire in Oregon, as well as how the Haines index performed during that fire.

The HDW is a new tool developed for firefighters to predict weather conditions which can affect the spread of wildfires. It is described as being very simple and only considers the atmospheric factors of heat, moisture, and wind.

Mr. Potter has provided three figures showing the weather indices computed from the National Weather Service’s NAM model analyses. Because they use a different model from the HDW website, he does not have historic percentile values for HDW, but they are illustrative, nonetheless. These are preliminary data and have not been through peer review or evaluation.

Here is a graph of HDW values compared to growth on the Chetco Bar Fire:hot dry windy index fire growth

Here are the Haines Index values for the mid-elevation version of the Index:

Haines index fire growth

And the high elevation version of the Haines Index:

Haines index fire growth

Mr. Potter said he has some thoughts about the graphs, but is interested in hearing what others take away from them.

The Chetco Bar Fire in southwest Oregon started July 12, 2017 and burned over 191,000 acres.

Chetco Bar Fire map
Map showing the location of the Chetco Bar Fire (on the left) in southwest Oregon, October 2, 2017. USFS.

Extreme mopup

Soldiers training firefighting
Oregon Army National Guard Soldiers during a firefighting training exercise at the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training in Salem, Oregon, August 28, 2017.

The U.S. Forest Service distributed this photo on Twitter September 17 that shows at least 90 Oregon Army National Guard Soldiers during a firefighting training exercise at the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training in Salem, Oregon, August 28, 2017.

Nearly 125 Citizen-Soldiers from the 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team volunteered to join the second iteration of personnel, also known as NG-2, activated by Governor Kate Brown to assist with wildfires across the state of Oregon. The Oregon National Guard is currently assigned to three  fires in central and southern Oregon; the Whitewater, High Cascades Complex, and Chetco Bar fires. (Photo by Sgt. 1st Class April Davis, Oregon Military Department Public Affairs)

In addition to the National Guard, 200 members of the active duty military were activated from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington earlier this month. Initially they were assigned to the Umpqua North Complex of fires 50 miles east of Roseburg, Oregon.

Update on Chetco Bar Fire and other wildfires in the Northwest

Satellite photo, wildfires in northwest US

Above: Satellite photo from August 27, 2017 showing smoke created by fires in the Northwestern United States, including Chetco Bar, Liberty, Rice Ridge, and Jolly Mountain Fires. The red dots on the map represent heat detected by the satellite on August 28.

(Originally published at 9:55 a.m. MDT August 28, 2017)

The Chetco Bar Fire in Southwest Oregon has not been growing as quickly in recent days as it did earlier when it quadrupled in size over four days and crossed the 100,000-acre threshold. The most recent mapping puts it at almost 108,000 acres. The area is under a Red Flag Warning on through Tuesday for gusty southwest winds and low humidities which could result in increased burning intensity and rapid fire growth.

The 4,400-acre Jolly Mountain Fire in Central Washington is near a Red Flag Warning area. Fire officials’ expectations for Monday:

Southern and western flanks of the fire will become active with uphill crown runs both on the east and west sides of West Fork drainage. SE flank will continue to back downslope. Fire will become increasingly active as it spreads to the south, where it loses its downslope effect and in more exposed to general winds. Fire likely to cross Sasse Ridge to the west.

liberty fire dozer
A dozer passes through an area where firefighters are working on the Liberty Fire. Undated & uncredited Inciweb photo.

The 12,800-acre Liberty Fire has been burning northeast of Missoula, Montana since July 15 while the Rice Ridge Fire, not far away, has spread over 27,800 acres since it started two weeks later. Hot, dry weather on Monday could cause both blazes to become more active.

Chetco Bar Fire in Oregon quadruples in four days, approaches 100,000 acres

Chetco Bar Fire

Above: Chetco Bar Fire August 17, 2017. Inciweb.

(Originally published at 9:35 a.m. PDT August 22, 2017)

On July 13, 2002 the Biscuit Fire started in southwest Oregon. Under a limited suppression strategy 7,000 workers fought the fire as it spread into California. By November it had burned up nearly 500,000 acres and $150 million, becoming one of the largest wildfires in the recent history of the 48 contiguous states.

Chetco Bar Fire satellite photo
Satellite photo of smoke from the Chetco Bar Fire, August 20, 2017. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite. Note that the smoke from the fire is a different color from the other fires in the area to the southeast and northeast.

This summer another very large wildfire, the Chetco Bar Fire, is burning partially in the footprints of the Biscuit and another nearby blaze, the 1987 Silver Fire. Also under a limited suppression strategy, the 788 personnel assigned today are faced with the steep slopes in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness as well as brush and dangerous snags left in the previously burned areas.

Evacuations are in effect and Curry County Sheriff’s Office says at least five homes have been destroyed by the fire.

map Chetco Bar Fire
The red line was the perimeter of the Chetco Bar Fire at 2:30 a.m. PDT August 22, 2017. The white line was the perimeter on August 18, 2017.

The Phoenix National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) Team with Incident Commander Bob Houseman, on the fire since July 29, explains their task:

Because of the risk to firefighter safety, low probability of success of a direct attack strategy and minimal values at risk, fire personnel are currently focused on constructing contingency lines, conducting reconnaissance for access, scouting safe entry points, locating natural features for containment opportunities, protecting wilderness values and developing a long term plan for safely engaging the fire.

On August 18 at 4 p.m. the Chetco Bar Fire covered 22,042 acres. Early Tuesday morning August 22 it was mapped at 97,758 acres, approaching the 100,000-acre threshold of becoming a “megafire”.

Map of the 2002 Biscuit Fire
Map of the 2002 Biscuit Fire, by Oregon Business.

For the last several days it has been spreading rapidly to the southwest growing to within five miles of Brookings, a community on the Pacific coast. It is 14 miles southeast of Gold Beach.

The Team is using a mixture of direct, indirect and point protection tactics when and where they expect there is a high probability of success. The fire is burning in areas of fire scar and islands that were previously unburned, as well as areas west of the previous fires. The combination of down and dead fuels in the old burns and newly cured grass adds complexity for firefighters.

satellite photo Biscuit Fire
Satellite photo of the Biscuit Fire on September 1, 2002. Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC.