THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST 2023

Finally some rain on the last day of this dreaded month.   The only rainfall before today was during the thunderstorm on the night of the 24th with 0.15 of an inch.   This thunderstorm touched off many fires in  Douglas County, including the Tyee Ridge Complex of fires about 8 miles to the west of me.   The smoke from these fires has made the air quality unhealthy.  Even with the rain today there is still the smell of smoke.   I had the windows open this morning but had to close them as it seems the rain pushed the smoke into the house this afternoon.   Now the air purifier in running to clear out the smell from the house.   

What will September bring?  

CRICKETS AND THE WIND

August can be a real bummer of a month with hot dry weather, yellow jackets buzzing throughout the day and the threat of wildfires.   My biggest outdoor chore is watering plants and some have given up and died not so much for a lack of water, but just too hot.   Eating a hot dinner does not even appeal at the end of a hot day.  Sometimes a bowl of cereal is all that taste good.   After the sun has gone down and the cool evening air brings life back to my old body, I go outside and sit watching the wind blow through the trees with the sound of crickets bringing me comfort before retiring for the night.  

FIRE SEASON 2023

The grass is starting to turn brown and my rainfall for May was only 0.84 of an inch when the average for May is 2.58 inches.   The NWS reports a little over an inch of rain in Roseburg for May.  That has to be a record low, while last May of 2022, I received 4.58 inches which must have been a record high.   This all leads up to the beginning of fire season starting June 9th.   Already there has been the smell of smoke at times either from the Canadian fires or a fire west of Eugene.   There is even a small fire in the Layng Creek drainage on the Cottage Grove Ranger District, which was considered the asbestos forest when I worked there from 1988 to 1995.   The last measurable rainfall I recorded was for May 11th and there is nothing in the seven day forecast.    What will this fire season be like and can we survive until the Fall rains? 

CATASTROPHIC FIRE DAMAGE

 Recently I took a road trip with my daughter and her family down to visit my son in  Meyers, California.  We took the Susanville/Reno route by way of highways 89 to 44 and 395 to highway 50 in Carson City.    It must have been 6 or 7 years ago since we traveled this route and since then there has been many catastrophic wild fires.   All the way starting at Hat Creek along Highway 89 down the eastside of the Sierra Nevada Mountains along Highway 395 to Reno much of the forests have been burned.   There are areas of green timber that were not burned or completely destroyed.   Much of this was burned by the Dixie Fire in 2021, including half of the Lassen National Park and destroyed the town of Greenville.   

While we traveled around South Lake Tahoe and Meyers during our visit we could see the burned forests along the south rim of the Tahoe Basin that was part of the Caldor Fire in 2021.    Presently this area is being logged to prevent a future fire of the standing dead and down trees, in addition to the hazard trees on the slopes above Highway 50 leading to Sacramento.   Most of these logs are being hauled and decked in Carson City waiting for processing in a future mill to be constructed in Gardnerville, Nevada.  

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WILDFIRES ON REBURNED AREAS

 Do you ever wonder if there is anything left out there to burn after all the fires over the last decade(s)?   

A few weeks ago I drove up to Oakridge to inquire about camping at Waldo Lake.   I was informed by the Forest Service that Waldo Lake was closed to the public due to the Cedar Creek Fire as it was spreading around the north end of the lake.   Knowing this area north of the lake burned 10 years ago, I asked what the fuel load was on the old burned over area.    Looking at a map on the wall at the Middle Fork Ranger Station I was told that the regrowth of under brush and old burned trees had fallen to the ground adding to the fuel load creating another catastrophic fire that eventually burned into the many campgrounds on the east side of the lake.    I'm not sure what the answer is on how to manage these burned over areas.   It might depend on site specific conditions, such as protection of communities, recreation facilities, road systems and other improvements.  My son informs me the Forest Service is removing many of the dead trees from the Caldor Fire that burned into the forests near South Lake Tahoe as a prevention measure to future fires in an urban area.    Highway 50 leading up to South Lake Tahoe from Sacramento is having all burned trees that are a hazard removed by Caltrans.    This is also true along I-5 going through the mountains of northern California from recent fires.    Locally we can see it up the North Umpqua Highway.

Fire has always been part of the ecosystem and may become more frequent on burned over areas with time, especially with a warming climate.    Will these burned over areas ever recover to what they once were? 

THE MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST

This is the only national forest in California without a major paved road entering it and no year-around highway crossing over it.   There is Forest Highway 7, a Forest Service gravel road crossing over Mendocino Pass from east to west, but is not open in the winter due to snow.   This road connects state Highway 162 from Willows to Highway 162 in Covelo, a two and half hour drive over 85 miles.   Willows is the Forest Headquarters and known as the Gateway to the Mendocino National Forest.   Hard to believe when Willows is located in the Sacramento Valley with only a view of the Coast Range Mountain to the west some 40 miles away.    One of the most tragic incidents was the loss of 15 firefighters on the Rattlesnake Wildfire in July of 1953 in Grindstone Canyon.  The scar on the landscape from that fire was visible from Willows.   

As a kid I spent many hours looking west at these mountains from our house west of town and wondering what it would be like to see what is over that ridge or up that canyon.   The Willows Ranger District winter office was up stairs in the Willows Post Office, where I got my first  Forest Service map dated 1956.    The District had a summer ranger station at Alder Springs about 45 miles up in the mountains from Willows.    I studied that map until I almost had it memorized.  There were place names on the map that I wanted to explore--Hokey Pokey Ridge, Snow Mountain, Hays Place, Plaskett Meadows, Keller Lake, Jenks Place, Log Springs Guard Station and many more.  

As teenagers a friend and I drove around the Forest in one of my dad's farm pickups exploring different places on that forest map.    We spent 3 or 4 days driving around on forest roads with a 50 gallon barrel of gas with a pump in the pick up bed to keep us going, along with camping gear.   I don't recall seeing many other vehicles, except a Forest Service employee checking camp fires in a campground.   We went as far west as Mendocino Pass and drove more roads than I can remember.    In the summer of 1962 we backpacked four days through the Yolla Bolly Middle Eel Wilderness Area after my dad dropped us off at a trailhead at a place called Brown's Camp.   From there we hiked to a small lake near South Yolla Bolly Mountain.   The second night was with the fire lookout on Hammerhorn Mountain, and from there down to Elk Lake for a night before hiking out of the wilderness to a Forest Service road where we caught a ride with a Forest Service road engineer to a logging camp where we spent a night.  The next day we caught a ride on a logging truck to Paskenta where one of our parents picked us up.  

Over the last few years most of this Forest has been destroyed from catastrophic wildfires, including summer home tracks, campgrounds, Forest Service guard stations, many road signs and other improvements.  The Willows Ranger District no longer exist and was combined with two other Districts of the five original Districts over the years.   Today there is only three ranger districts and the Forest I once was familiar with is gone, except for the memories.    

THE TRINITY ALPS

With all the grim news lately I have resorted to getting lost in some old books I  have on places we backpacked into many years ago.   One place that stands out is the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area in northern California.   A hiking and backpacking guide book titled,  "The Trinity Alps" by Luther Linkhart describes 29 trips in to this wilderness area.   In the beginning of his book he describes the natural history and the human history of the Trinity Alps.  He gives directions from state highways to Forest Service Roads to trial heads, land marks to look for, how trails follow streams, ridges, what lakes are accessible from what trials and where side trails go.   He tells of old mining claims, provides pictures of mining equipment and cabins that remain from the gold mining days going back to the 1850's.    There is a story about George Jorstad, who built a cabin in 1937 on his claim and remained there until 1983 when he was over 80 years of age.   The cabin still remains, along with few other others.   During the 1970's the northwestern portion the wilderness area was under the control of marijuana growers that threaten hikers and Forest Service personnel.   The public was advised to stay out that area as many growers were armed and dangerous.   In the 1980's law enforcement agencies went in to clear out many of the growers.  

It is interesting to retrace my travels to some of these places, some places I remember and others that don't come to mind.    Some of my early trips were on weekends when I lived and worked for the Forest Service in Orleans.    On a Friday night after work I would pack a canteen of water, sleeping bag, a cooking pot, some utensils, trail food in a pack and off we went, me and my dog, Herman.    Herman was a puppy, mostly of the mutt variety when I found him walking along Highway 96 near Somes Bar in 1971.    Herman accompanied me on many hikes both to the Trinity Alps and the Marble Mountains.  In 1993 family members and myself backpacked in from the Coffee Creek Road on the eastside of the Trinity Alps for three days.   

Many of these areas have changed due to wild fires, road closures due to a lack of maintenance and deterioration of trails over the last three decades, but I'm sure glad to have these books to escape into during the harsh reality of what is happening in our world.  

Excitement at Brightman Flat 1970

 Brightman Flat is an area along the North Fork of the Stanislaus River before going up the grade on highway 108 over Sonora Pass at over 9000 feet in elevation.    This highway is closed in the winter just above Pinecrest.   A recent wildfire has destroyed most of the campgrounds, the Dardanelle Resort, including most of the cabins and the Brightman Guard Station.   I believe the original lodge at Kennedy Meadows is gone too.

Some of this may have been rebuilt?   It was a very picturesque setting just below the tree line of the high Sierras in California when I worked there in the summer of 1970. 

EXCITEMENT AT BRIGHTMAN FLAT

 

In the summer of 1970 the Forest Service hired a local contractor with a backhoe to dig new holes for the outhouses at the Brightman Flat Campground and cover the remains of the old holes.   Bob and I were seasonal employees working on the recreation maintenance crew on the Summit Ranger District of the Stanislaus National Forest.    Our assignment for this day was to assist the contractor by making sure nobody was using the outhouses as they were moved from their old location to the new holes.   The procedure was simple:  Bob and I would make sure nobody was in the outhouses before we would tip them over onto the bucket of the backhoe tractor and set them up over the new hole and use a shovel to cleanup around each outhouse.   (Today this practice has been replaced with vault toilets and are pumped out when the need arises).

Bob and I seemed to get all the dirty jobs from hauling garbage from the back country campgrounds during the week and maintaining the restrooms at the Pinecrest Campgrounds on weekends.   This day we were in for a break from our usual routine.   In the afternoon while working in the campground we noticed smoke coming from the forest up the hill across highway 108, the Sonora Pass highway.    The fire patrolman, who was stationed at the nearby Brightman Guard Station, drove into the campground and requested we help him suppress the fire.    We followed him in our work truck to a point where we had to walk up hill to the fire.   It was burning through a ground cover of mostly pine needles and duff.    The fire area was less than a quarter of an acre in size.   As we started scraping a fire line we noticed articles of clothing in the center of the burned area.   Some of the clothing had been partially burnt, including a pair of jeans, t-shirts and women’s underwear.  The fire patrolman suspected the people who own the clothing were responsible for the fire and might be making their escape to the parking lot downhill near the Dardanelle Resort.  He instructed us to remain on the fire as he left.   A short time later the fire crew from the Ranger station at Pinecrest arrived and took over mopping up the fire.   Bob and I returned to the campground as we saw the District Fire Management Officer drive by in his truck with red lights flashing.   Later we learned a young couple had been found in the parking lot nude trying to retrieve clothing from their car.    The Fire Management Officer wrote them up a citation as they stood there with only their shoes on.    The story goes that they had been smoking marijuana, fell asleep after engaging in love making to awake to fire and smoke all around them that was probably caused from dropping the joint on the ground.   In a panic and confusion, or maybe just stoned the couple made a run for it.     Bob and I continued cleaning up around the outhouses, wondering why we hadn’t had the good luck to help out in finding them, but somebody has to do the dirty work.    

SHUTDOWN

Most contract loggers did a good job complying with the Forest Service Timber sale contract.   Now and then there was always the temptation to cut some corners and save time as time was money.    During the peak logging season Forest Service contract administrators could be stretched thin depending on their work load.   Some loggers knew this based on how many visits the administrator made to their operation during a week.   Some timber sales required more of our time than others depending on how complex the sale was.   For example, a thinning sale could take much of the administrator’s time with approving tractor skid trails or skyline corridor layout, landing locations and marking additional trees to be cut for these authorized clearings.   Sometimes an entire day could be spent on a thinning sale.    On the other hand a large clear cut unit might only be visited once a week just to check on progress or meet with the logging supervisor or contract logger to agree on a new landing location or spur road for the next unit to be logged.  

One such case happened on the Orleans Ranger District in the summer of 1975 when I approved a landing location and a 200 foot spur road to access a clear-cut unit on a sale purchased by Sierra Pacific Industries out of Arcata, California.   The contract logger was V & K Logging from Happy Camp.    The next day I returned to this sale unexpected to see what progress had been made.  To my amazement the spur road and landing had been constructed as agreed to and yarding was in progress.     Being in fire season I got suspicious that all the required fire equipment may not have been in its proper place.   In addition to having a 500 gallon fire truck, this contract had a requirement for 300 gallon water tank with pump and hose line to be attached to the skyline carriage in the event of a fire in the unit.   To move this tank from one unit to the next they usually drained it to make it easy to transport.   I wondered if it had been filled with water during this move, so I made my way across the busy landing to where the tank had been placed out of the way of the operation.   As I made my way toward the tank all eyes of the landing crew watched me, including the loader operator and yarder engineer.   Sure enough the tank was empty.   I made eye contact with the yarder engineer and ran my index finger across my throat informing him to shut it down.    He blew a long whistle to inform the rigging crew that operations were shutdown.   After shutting down the yarder and loader they told me they were going to fill it at the end of the day after getting the daily quota of log trucks loaded.   They knew from experience that once they were shut down only the Forest Supervisor could permit operations to resume, so they all got in their vehicles and returned to Happy Camp.  By the time I got back to the office the entire world knew of the shutdown, including the District Ranger, Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) and the Forest Supervisor.    After a meeting of upper management of both parties with insurances by SPI that there would be full compliance with the all fire precautionary provisions of the contract operations were allowed to resume.

The End of 2020 Fire Season

 Douglas Forest Protection Association (DFPA) announced the end of fire season yesterday.   It was a fire season we will never forget and feel lucky to have survived it even if the nearest major fire was 15 miles from us.   Already planning on how to reduce the fire risk on our property by cutting small dead trees, burning slash, and/or by chipping and scattering it.   Enough work to keep me busy all winter or as the old body permits.   Winter forecast is for wet weather, maybe some snow.  Hope there is not a repeat of what happened in 2018-- eight days of no power, heavy wet snow bringing many trees down and the threat of our roof collapsing.    Maybe that scenario is better than the threat of a wildfire.   One thing for sure we don't look forward to summer much anymore.  

Why all these fires???

 As the Fall rains bring an end to most of the fires that have burned a record amount of land, destroyed small towns and many homes the same old question comes to surface:   Why do we have these catastrophic fires year after year?    Frustration and anger is what follows after the smoke begins to settle, especially from those that have lost everything.   There is the sad story of a ranching family that had a grazing allotment on the Plumas National Forest in California and are out looking for their cattle.  They have found many dead, some needing to be euthanized and a few roaming along forest roads in search of water and feed.  They, along with many others are angry with mismanagement of the National Forests over the last decades.    They don't blame the local Forest Service employees, but those in Washington DC that have no understanding of how the forest should be managed at the local level.   Fires have always been part of the ecosystem.  Over the last 100+ years we have suppressed fires letting the forest floor build up with an understory of brush and small trees.   Years of uneven-aged management on both federal forests and private timber lands creating second growth plantations susceptible to fire under extreme fire conditions.   Then there is climate change as the summers become longer and warmer with less rainfall and snowpack in the winters.   Over the last 10 years more and more conifers at the lower elevation are dying from drought and insect infestations increasing the fire risk. 

What is the answer--more controlled fires, more thinning of forests, more defensible space around communities and homes in the forests?  Some of this is happening, but not to the scale and intensive it should be.   No doubt funding is insufficient, but think of all the money going to suppression.   How is the OSU School of Forestry addressing this in their curriculum?   

When will there be more action?

Update?

 Not sure if smoke is bad or very bad or just getting used to it.   Do know it is bad down in Sutherlin whenever I go to town for groceries, etc.   Not a drop of rain yet, maybe Thursday to Friday, will believe it when I see it.   So far we are 10 inches behind on rainfall for this water year, unless we get some between now and the end of the month.   With a La Nina winter predicted we are in the middle of a wet north and a dry south.  

Just maintaining the status quo with indoor chores and outside projects, such as watering plants, trying to get firewood in sheds before winter and the list goes on.   

Trying to keep one step ahead of the Grim Reaper

What will be the New Norm(?)

 Another smoky day, no rain, maybe some showers by Thursday night.  See on the morning CoCoRaHS rainfall map a little rain north of Portland and along the coast.   Picture is of a stressful looking oak tree on our place.   Wonder what the long term effects will be on the weather, acid rain possibilities, and vegetation due to all the smoke and ash?   Sure glad we planted 25% other than Douglas fir, 10% Incense Cedar, 10% Ponderosa Pine and 5% maple/ash.  

More questions than answers

Archie Creek Fire Update

 This is the latest from the Archie Fire, about 16 miles to our east.   This morning at 7 am it was 51 degrees with RH of 77%.   As of noon it is 62 degrees with RH of 73% and NO WIND at our place.   30% chance of rain Monday and increases to 60% Tuesday through Wednesday.   

Can we make it 5 more days?

 For our location there is a 50% chance of rain Monday night and a 70% chance on Tuesday.  Between now and then the usual with variable winds up to 10 mph, mostly from the northwest.  Looking at the forecast to the north and the south of us there is more of a chance of showers than rain as shown for our location.   These 5 days will be like 5 years and this forecast could change for the better or worse.

Standby

Current Conditions

 This picture was taken at 4:45 pm looking south from the deck, much better than yesterday at this time when it was dark.   Very little wind.   Nearest fire is east of Sutherlin.

Looking South

 Took this picture from above our place at 3 pm looking south.   So far no wind and hope the weatherman is wrong with his forecast for northeast winds.  Now almost 3:30 and almost dark outside.  

Smoke & Ash

 That little dot is the sun over our house as it gets darker and the ash keeps falling.   French Creek fire up near Glide and another up by Rock Creek that has closed Highway 138 going east.

Have mercy if the east wind starts to blow.

The Silver Fire

 This fire started 33 years ago.  The recovery project to salvage log afterwards was more intense than trying to suppress all the fires around the Silver Fire, including the Galice, Longwood and others I don't remember the names of.

Not sure how many of you retired FS people were on these fires.

                                                   THE SILVER FIRE

 

In the late summer of 1987 a dry lightning storm moved across northwestern California and southwest Oregon.   It had been a dry hot summer and fires were reported all across the Klamath National Forest in California and the Siskiyou National Forest in Oregon.   Fire crews were dispatched to many of the communities in the Illinois Valley to protect life and property from what was called the Longwood Fire.   With many other fires burning across the west there was a lack of resources to cover all the fires.   There was no major initial attack on fires burning in the back country.  This included much of the roadless area east of the Illinois River in the Indigo and Silver Creek drainages.   The only initial attack on what was called the Silver Fire was smoke jumpers being dropped into the fire area.   They no sooner landed then they had to hike out because of safety concerns as the fire exploded out of the Silver Creek drainage into the Indigo Creek watershed.  The use of aircraft was limited due to all the smoke. 

Many of us non-fire District personnel and Zone 2 engineering people from Gold Beach were sent to the Longwood fire camp near Cave Junction to provide support in the transportation section.   We spent two weeks driving trucks, delivering supplies, fire tools, lunches and water to crews on the fire lines.    Due to a lack of vehicles the Forest Service even rented U-Haul trucks.   We used many of these trucks to move equipment and supplies to a spike camp being set up at Bear Camp.   The National Guard was also helping out, but their Humvees were so wide it was hard to get by them on some of the narrow forest roads.  

During our entire stay there we never saw the sun because of the dense smoke.   All we could see was an orange ball during the day.   Some residents near the community of Takilma were desperate for fire suppression help to save their crop of marijuana.   At times we could get a smell of it burning along some of the roads through that area.   In short many of these fires burned until the Fall rains arrived and extinguished them.  

Then came the recovery project.    Before the smoke even settled Congress was putting pressure on the Forest Service to estimate the amount of timber that might be available for sale.   In many ways, mostly through lobbyists, it was the timber industry wanting to gain access to the timber in the roadless area since the environmental community had been fighting to keep it roadless for years.   Foresters and engineers were detailed in from other Regions to help out with the planning and layout of these salvage sales.     I ended up working with a forester from Montana surveying the burned timber in the Indigo Creek drainage.   This involved hiking from the end of an existing road coming in from the north off the Burnt Ridge Road.   We spent days hiking through large stands of old growth forest that had been completely burned.  These were some of the biggest Douglas-fir trees I have ever seen.   In places we estimated 80 to 100 thousand board feet per acre.   That would be equivalent to 10 to 15 truck loads per acre of mostly three log loads.    Crossing Indigo Creek involved using a bosun’s chair rigged on a cable crossing the stream.   As winter storms started arriving it was common to hear the falling of burned trees off in the distance.   A camp consisting of some wall tents, cots, sleeping bags, cooking stoves and utensils was set up on a flat between Indigo Creek and the Silver Peak ridge for timber and engineering crews to stay at while working long periods of time locating unit boundaries and proposed road locations.    During a period of time when the camp was not used bears invaded the camp helping themselves to some food and dragging the sleeping bags from the tents and using them for beds.  They did very little damage.

Engineers surveyed different proposed road locations and a possible sites for constructing a bridge crossing of Indigo Creek.   They concluded it would very expensive, involving full bench construction due to the steep side slopes.    Over time environmental groups, such as Earth First, became aware of what was happening on the ground and when Forest Service personnel were not in the vicinity they would remove flagging used to locate unit boundaries and road locations.   Some logging equipment on a nearby Forest Service timber sale was sabotaged by this group doing much damage to their yarder by putting gravel in the transmission.   The logger was allowed to put up a gate with a combination Forest Service lock and his lock.   He also wanted to put killer dogs on the sale area which was not agreeable with the Forest Service.

In the end, no roads were constructed across Indigo Creek.  Roads were extended from the existing roads on the north side of the creek and the timber south of the creek was removed by helicopters to landings to the north.   When this was implemented I had transferred to the Cottage Grove District on the Umpqua National Forest in the spring of 1988 to be closer to family living in Eugene.  In the summer of 2002 most this area burned again in the Biscuit Fire, the largest fire in the history of Oregon.    

The Illusion of a great fire

 

THE ILLUSION OF A GREAT FIRE

 

On the Orleans Ranger District of the Six Rivers National Forest there were two fire lookouts, Orleans Mountain with a permanent structure at over 6000 feet in elevation and Shelton Butte at a little over 3000 feet overlooking the Klamath River.   There was no permanent lookout building on Shelton Butte, just a flat area where the Forest Service parked a trailer during periods of high fire danger to serve as living quarters for the lookout equipped with a two-way radio and an Osborne fire finder or alidade.     In the summer of 1972 the District Fire Management Assistant (FMA) put a seasonal fire crewman on Shelton Butte during high fire danger.    Shelton Butte had a better advantage of detecting fires down in the Klamath River canyon than did Orleans Mountain perched on the high ridge dividing the Salmon River drainage to the east from the Klamath River on the west side of the ridge.   Lookout personnel would have visitors on occasions, both during work hours and after work hours.    Visitors could be passing tourists or a friend of the lookout.   On one weekend the Shelton Butte lookout had a friend visiting.  I believe the friend was another seasonal fire crew member.    At sunset the lookout excitedly called in a large fire burning along the ridge line to the far west.   The FMA was puzzled since no other lookouts were reporting this fire, especially Orleans Mountain which had a longer view, even to the Pacific Ocean on a clear day.    The Shelton Butte lookout was asked to pin point the fire with the Osborne Fire finder, which gives the azimuth reading, but again he reported the entire length of the ridge was burning.   The FMA sent a fire patrolman up to the lookout to see what was going on.   Within an hour the patrolman arrived only see the glare of the sun setting through the trees along the far ridge line.   He discovered the lookout and his friend had been smoking some Humboldt tobacco and were higher than a kite and interpreting the glare of the sun through the trees on the far ridge line as a fire.  

After the patrolman reported to the FMA of what was going on over the radio the FMA relayed to the patrolman that they were fired and to vacate the lookout immediately.