On August 5, 1949, the fire in Mann Gulch overran 15 smokejumpers and a fire guard. Thirteen of them died, memorialized for history in the book Young Men and Fire, a classic by author Norman Maclean that won the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction in 1992.
A new fire that ignited over the weekend in southwest Oregon is threatening the community of Agness, Oregon, on the Rogue River west of Grants Pass. The fire quickly grew to more than 8,000 acres despite USFS initial attack efforts.
Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported that the Flat Fire is growing fast on the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest, between Gold Beach on Oregon’s south coast and Grants Pass on I-5. Weather conditions over the last couple days contributed to the quick spread, and an IMT took over from local agencies yesterday. The fire is burning just a couple miles from Agness, near the confluence of the Rogue River and the Illinois River.
The Rogue River flows 215 miles from Crater Lake to the Pacific Ocean. The 84-mile Congressionally-designated “National Wild and Scenic” portion of the Rogue begins 7 miles west of Grants Pass and ends 11 miles before its mouth at Gold Beach.
Bridge over the Rogue
Jefferson Public Radio reported the fire grew more than 8,000 acres in under three days. Nearly 400 firefighters were working the fire, which threatens about 40 structures in and around the small community of Agness. On Monday, crews were building fireline to prevent further spread.
There’s a reason (or 4) that GoogleMaps will show you this “preferred route” and the “short route” between Grants Pass and Gold Beach; it’s really skatey even in the summertime, and LOTS of people get lost or stranded on Bear Camp Road. Please DO NOT interfere with firefighter vehicle traffic up there because you wanto “go get a look at the helicopters” or something … interfering with firefighting operations, whether you’re flying a drone or driving a pickup, will land you in jail, and some sheriffs are touchier about this than others.
Road alternates between Agness and Grants Pass, Oregon
It was planned yesterday that evening operations would include night crews on the northwest corner of the fire, if conditions permit, which would allow crews to burn out vegetation between fire crews and the active fire.
The fire recently was reported at just over 8,200 acres, with a total 378 personnel assigned to the incident. Resources at that time included 16 engines, 13 crews, 2 dozers, 7 helicopters, and 2 water tenders.
Closures: At least one closure order is in place for the safety of the public. Please be careful when driving in the area and do not drive toward the fire if you don’t live there or work there.
Restrictions: Fire restrictions are in place on the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest. The Forest has several closures and public use restrictions on the wild section of the Rogue River [HERE] but they’re mostly in pdf format and thus may not be accessible for everyone. Your best bet for mostly current info is inciweb. (Note the correct URL for this website has changed several times over the years, but for right now it is inciweb.nwcg.gov)– and even though the site warns you to redirect to inciweb.wildfire.gov, THAT DOES NOT WORK. The Flat Fire incident page doesn’t yet have any MAPS, but in the meantime here’s one of the general size of it, northeast of Gold Beach:
Flat Fire map
The Flat Fire is now the largest wildfire burning in Oregon and more crews and other resources are expected in the next few days; current management is under Albrecht’s Northwest Incident Management Team 6.
An evacuation shelter has been established at Gold Beach High School for anyone displaced by the fire and needing assistance. As of Monday, there were no evacuations ordered. Residents can sign up for emergency notifications with the Curry County Emergency Management Department.
KPIC-TV News reported that fire officials said the Flat Fire is burning in historic burn scars from both the 2002 Biscuit Fire and the 2018 Klondike Fire. Firefighters are working around numeroous standing dead trees and dense vegetation within these burn scars, and the landscape in this part of the Pacific Northwest is characterized by very steep terrain and extremely limited access options. Fire managers are deliberately considering firefighting tactics to keep crews safe, while protecting surrounding communities and infrastructure.
More resources arrived this morning, and their numbers will be boosted over the next several days. Crews are strengthening and building new firelines, and fire managers will assign aviation resources as conditions and visibility allow. Watch for updates from the Rogue Valley Interagency Community Center.
As of this morning there were no official closure orders for the area, but people are STRONGLY ADVISED TO STAY OUT. This is a rugged part of Oregon’s coastal mountains where people often get stranded or disoriented or lost, and local fire and law enforcement people don’t have a lot of spare time right now, with a fast-growing fire of this size, to come look for you. Stay out, and avoid getting in the way of firefighting operations. The rugged, mountainous terrain makes it more difficult for firefighting crews to access the area, BUT the Lost Coast Outpost reports that firefighters’ goal is “full suppression” on a rapidly growing fire in extreme summer temperatures.
Nationally, there are now eight fires being managed under a strategy other than full suppression. For updates on the Flat Fire, you can email 2023.flat.or@firenet.gov
No one was evacuated as of yesterday morning, Curry County Commissioner Brad Alcorn told the Lost Coast Outpost. But because of the steep and harsh terrain and hazardous weather conditions, Alcorn said he expects the fire will grow.
“There are a handful of residences up there, probably 14 to 15 homes, and the sheriff has contacted everyone,” Alcorn told the Outpost. “They’re in communication, so if there is a situation where we need to do an immediate evacuation we have a mechanism in place to make sure that happens safely.”
The Flat Fire was first reported at about 6 p.m. Saturday, Alcorn told the community in a video briefing on Sunday. It’s burning near Oak Flat, not far southwest of Agness, according to a Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest news release on Sunday. The Forest Service said two days ago that about 40 structures were threatened. The fire is making its biggest gains in the Lawson Creek drainage; it’s on both sides of the Illinois River, burning in the 2002 Biscuit Fire scar.
The fire was mapped at 5,477 acres via an infrared flight two days ago, said Doug Epperson, the PIO for Northwest Incident Management Team 6, the Type 2 IMT that took over fire operations at 6 a.m. yesterday. He said the fire is burning in new regrowth that occurred after the 2002 Biscuit Fire.
“There’s been a lot of growth since then,” he added.
Air Quality Index between Gold Beach and Grants Pass for the Flat Fire, July 2023
A red flag warning was in effect through this morning, and those weather conditions will likely contribute to additional fire spread. An air quality advisory was also issued for parts of Curry and Josephine counties; air quality could be diminished because of smoke from the fire. The National Preparedness Level is still at 2 and the national sit report lists just 16 large fires today.
Recent facebook post by Murry, re-posted with permission and slightly edited; he spent 26 years as a smokejumper followed by 22 seasons on a Cal Fire lookout, and he theorizes that much of the public land in the West has burned because we’re under-utilizing smokejumpers.
Guest post by MURRY TAYLOR
Since 2020 smokejumpers have averaged only 4.5 fire jumps each season. That’s a terrible under-utilization of an important firefighting resource. In the past we easily jumped twice that many, and some years four times as many. I’ve seen it many times while on the Duzel Rock lookout southeast of Happy Camp, California — fires were not staffed for a day or two and then went big and cost tens or even hundreds of millions while the jumpers sat unused.
There seems to be a lack of understanding among fire managers in the Forest Service about the capability of these jumpers. Dispatchers have said they didn’t put jumpers on a fire because the “trees were too tall,” or the “winds were too strong.” Clearly they didn’t understand that jumpers carry 150-foot let-down ropes, and they have a spotter in the plane throwing streamers, so they know EXACTLY what the wind is like over the fire.
The good news is that things seem to be changing for the better. Allowing jumpers to get back to 10-plus fire jumps per season would save big money and lots of acres. For those who think we need to get more fire back on the land, all I can say is, Don’t worry, there’s going to be plenty of that given the way fires burn now. The policy of putting ALL these early season fires out while small would be a big help. That way, when August — the toughest part of fire season — arrives, the handcrews wouldn’t be exhausted and scattered all over hell, and the skies wouldn’t be filled with smoke so that Air Ops are critically limited.
Jumpers and hotshots tell me that Yes, sometimes the fuels and new fire weather are factors in making fires harder to catch. But MOSTLY, they say, there’s always something that can be done to catch these fires if they are hit while small.
The Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon has taken a more aggressive approach to putting fires out when small. In the last three seasons they’ve had 192 fires and burned only 50 acres. This was achieved by pre-positioning jumpers during lightning storms, better utilization of rappellers, and contract fire resources.
I wrote a post on this topic a couple years ago. Over and over, while on the Duzel Rock lookout, I’ve heard that certain fires weren’t attacked early because the country was “too steep and too rough.”
Here’s a facebook post from three years ago. The “Forgotten Oregon” group on facebook is a treasure trove of photos and memories. Anyone with Cave Junction memories or memorabilia is welcome to contribute!
Don Basey at Cave Junction, early 1950s, photo from Allyson Basey Geary.
William Dinwiddie Tucker, a smokejumper in the early decades of the program, died on January 18, 2023, in Arlington, Virginia, at the age of 94.
William Dinwiddie Tucker
His obituary included stories of fires he jumped and his commitment to his smokejumper colleagues.
“One such fire was immortalized in the article ‘I Jump into Hell,’ published in the October 1955 issue of Cavalier magazine, where he was part of a team struggling to get their wounded colleague out of the forest.”
Stills of smokejumpers and Richard Widmark from “Red Skies of Montana.”
“Bill can also be seen in the 1952 film Red Skies of Montana, working alongside Richard Widmark and Jeffrey Hunter. Until recently, Bill would return periodically to Montana for smokejumper reunions where he would work on clearing trails and reminisce over cold bottles of Moose Drool beer with his friends.”
After three seasons as a smokejumper, Tucker “joined the USAF Reserves, transitioning to active duty in 1961. He served as a USAF Military Pilot and Aircraft Commander with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (Hurricane Hunters) at Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico. In Vietnam, Bill served as a pilot and instructor flying C-123s and C-130s on transport and defoliation missions. After the war ended, Bill went back into the USAF Reserves, working at Andrews AFB with the 459th Congressional Wing until he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1979.”
His citation for the Distinguished Flying Cross noted “how Bill successfully completed a high priority mission despite his aircraft sustaining significant damage.”
The family requests that donations be made to the National Smokejumper Association, https://smokejumpers.com.
Smokejumpers who survived a 1961 wildfire on Higgins Ridge in Idaho will recount their harrowing experience in a film on Monday on Montana PBS. The Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell reported that “Higgins Ridge,” named for the location of the fire in Idaho’s Selway Bitterroot Wilderness, will air January 30 at 8 p.m. Mountain Time.
The U.S. Forest Service sent 20 smokejumpers to what looked like a routine fire from the air, but an afternoon cold front blew the blaze to an inferno on the Nez Perce National Forest. The jumpers, 8 from Grangeville and 12 out of Missoula — many of them rookies — shifted from fighting the fire to fighting for their lives. They instinctively wanted to run to safety, but they remembered the fate of 13 firefighters who had tried to outrun a fire in Montana’s Mann Gulch 12 years before.
With that tragedy in mind, they decided to hold up. As the wind increased to 50 mph the supervisors of the two squads, Dave Perry and Fred “Fritz” Wolfrum, instructed the firefighters to remain calm and to clear an area for themselves in the black.
In the film, 12 of the 20 men who jumped the fire on August 4, 1961, share the story of how the fire surrounded them, showered them with embers, and forced them to shelter in place. After about three hours, helicopter pilot Rod Snider managed to land his Bell 47B-3 on Higgins Ridge, about 83 miles southwest of Missoula, despite heavy smoke and wind, and he shuttled the jumpers to safety. Snider, then a pilot with Johnson Flying Service who is now 92 years old, is featured in the documentary along with many of his original photos from 1961.
A Bell 47G helicopter, USFS photo.
“This is a story that, for 60 years, never was shared beyond a few smokejumper circles,” producer Breanna McCabe said. “I didn’t believe it when I first heard it. But when a dozen men who were there all corroborate the same series of unbelievable events, I knew it was time for the public to hear it.”
Many of the interviews were collected in 2019 as part of the National Museum of Forest Service History’s Higgins Ridge Oral History Project. The museum partnered with Montana PBS producer Breanna McCabe for technical assistance recording the interviews, and McCabe collected additional interviews and materials to weave the stories into one captivating hourlong film.
About the producer: Montana PBS producer Breanna McCabe draws from 16 years of video storytelling throughout the West and beyond. She is eager to bring “Higgins Ridge” to audiences in 2023, a historical story that’s grounded at the Missoula Smokejumper Base in McCabe’s hometown. She remembers watching smokejumpers practice landing on the hill behind her childhood home, and today she enjoys hearing “silk stories” from her brother-in-law, an Alaska smokejumper. As a producer at Montana PBS, McCabe contributes stories to the program “Backroads of Montana.” Her last documentary, “Ghost Forests,” took viewers into high elevations to examine the threats facing whitebark pine. McCabe graduated from the University of Montana School of Journalism in 2009, and returned to earn her master’s degree in environmental science and natural resource journalism in 2020. In between, she worked as a broadcast news reporter for CBS News affiliates KPAX-TV in Missoula and KREM 2 News in Spokane. When she’s not asking senior smokejumpers to see their slide collections, she enjoys exploring trails, rivers and shores with her husband and their two pint-sized, high-spirited rescue dogs.
A smokejumper was seriously injured Sunday May 15 during a training parachute jump. Ben Elkind sustained a dislocated hip and pelvic fracture during a hard landing. During surgery at the hospital they found six fractures and placed three plates and 10 screws to repair the damage.
Ben has been a Smokejumper for the US Forest Service based in Redmond, OR for nine years and worked in fire as a member of the Zig-Zag Hotshots before jumping. He rookied as a smokejumper in Redding, CA, in 2014 then transferred to Redmond in 2015 to be closer to home and his family.
If his name seems familiar it is because on Wildfire Today we reprinted an opinion article he wrote that was published in The Oregonian, titled, “A USFS firefighter in Oregon can be paid more at McDonald’s.” Ben was also a member of a group that traveled to Washington, D.C. in March where they met with White House officials about pay issues and passing the Tim Hart Wildland Firefighter Classification and Pay Parity Act (H.R. 5631). They also talked with Marty Walsh, the Secretary of Labor, who oversees the Office of Worker’s Compensation Programs (OWCP), an agency that has been criticized for slow-walking or failing to appropriately process the claims and pay the medical bills of firefighters injured on the job.
In an ironic twist, a GoFundMe page has been set up for Ben’s family by the Redmond Smokejumpers Welfare Organization, an often necessary step taken by many federal firefighters who are injured on the job. Here is an excerpt from their description on GoFundMe:
Ben has a long road to recovery and will be unable to work for a significant length of time and will be missing out on the overtime that so many wildland firefighters depend on to make a living. We are starting this GoFundMe in order to help Ben and his family through this tough time. Please consider donating to help a firefighter and his family while they support each other on the road to recovery.
