Black Crater Fire Update
July 27th, 2006
As of 11 pm, PDT, Thursady, July 27, the Black Crater Fire is now over 2,000 acres and still 0% contained. The City of Sisters, Oregon is threatened;1500 people have been evacuated. The fire started in the Deschutes National Forest south and west of town from a lightning strike Sunday. It quickly spread into the Three Sisters Wilderness where the USFS does not fight fires.
The Wilderness is a tinder box of beetle-killed trees. Predictably, the Black Crater Fire blew up and spread to areas of the B and B Complex Burn which destroyed 90,000 acres of the Deschutes NF in 2003. The new fire is now expected to burn at least 10,000 acres, and probably more, depending on the weather. That is, the Black Crater Fire will burn until the snows of October put it out.
Some reports available on the Web:
The Northwest Oregon Interagency Incident Management Team
Black Crater Fire
July 27, 2006
Media Contact: Bernie Pineda
Black Crater Fire Information: 541-549-3211For Immediate Release:
An immediate evacuation notice has been issued by the Deschutes County Sheriff and Emergency Services to residents in the Crossroads and Edgington neighborhoods. A pre-evacuation notice has been issued to residents of the Tollgate neighborhood. A Red Cross evacuation shelter is established at the Sisters High School.
The Black Crater fire has spotted approximately 20 acres across the 1018 road onto private land. Firefighters are working aggressively to contain the spot which is east of the road within one-half mile. One helicopter is currently dropping buckets of water onto the area, which has been logged, and an airtanker is also working the line with fire retardant.
Fire managers are closely monitoring fire and weather behavior.
The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center
Black Crater Fire
Updated: Thursday, 27 July 2006 at 6:55 pm
Status Active
Lead Agency USFS
Location Three Sisters Wilderness-7 mi SW of Sisters
Latitude 44° 15′ 19″ (44.2553) Longitude 121° 44′ 40″ (-121.7444)Fire Start Date 2006-07-23 Acres 2000.00 Square Miles 3.13
Percent Contained 0
Threatened Structures 300
Expected Containment unknown
Cause Lightning
More Info Fire Information: 541-549-3211Status Very active fire behavior this afternoon with running fire, crowning and torching resulting in an evacuation notice being issued for the Crossroads and Edington subdivision and a preevacuation notice being issued for the Tollgate subdivision.
The Black Crater Fire is a predictable, preventable, utterly stupid, totally incompetent, massive destruction of forests, planned and perpetrated by the US Forest Service. It is a huge crime without any repercussions to the eco-Nazis who engineered it. We will continue to track this fire, but it is a bitter and thoroughly unpleasant exercise.
July 28th, 2006 at 3:09 am
Mike:
Technically, the Black Crater Fire is just another named sub-set of the B&B Complex, which began to take shape shortly after the turn of the century, due largely to beetle-killed conifers, lightning, people, and relatively recent federal passive forest and fire management policies (”litigation opportunities”). Think of the “six-year-jinx” of Tillamook Fires from 1933 to 1951 or the Yaquina Fires of 1849 and 1868 as examples: temporally different wildfire events within the same spatial boundaries. The B&B Burn just got bigger. As clearly and vocally predicted, again.
You are right. This stuff is so preventable and should be/should have been prevented. And at a profit to Oregon schools, rural communities, forest aesthetics, clean air, freshwater, recreational opportunities, and native wildlife (those with spines or vascular cells, anyway) populations. And without the need for forced evacuations of homes, businesses, and yuppie ski cabins every two or three years. And saving however much they’re sending to Mexico or spending on BAER culverts a day that could have gone to local schools or jobs instead.
Wilderness areas have become the nation’s tombs for big, dead, rotting trees. This is sad. Oregon has a lot of costly Wilderness areas — more land than most other States have in total government ownership, in fact; including every single Eastern State. Fortunately our nation’s forest scientists are hard at work solving our forest’s current “Top Priority” problems with “Resiliency” and “Climate Change.” You can look it up. They must have got “Sustainability” hammered or funding must have dried up.
What a waste of resources. What an ugly, dangerous, blatantly mismanaged landscape. This is not what we were given only a generation ago, and not what our grandparents or parents were given, either. Our children and grandchildren deserve better. Oregon foresters should be embarassed that our federal policies are a proven failure. We have the dead trees and broken families and communities to prove it. We need leadership at the local level to stop this nonsense from going any further.
Bob Zybach
July 28th, 2006 at 9:10 am
Thank you for your support and cogent analysis.
One slight spin off your comments: Oregon foresters are not embarrassed; we are heart-broken and angry as hell. Oregon foresters did not initiate this crisis of forest destruction, eastern urban twits are responsible.
Oregon foresters do not staff the USFS, not even in Oregon, nor do Oregon foresters have any say in Federal forest policy. Ditto the entire citizenry of the state, who are excluded from our own local landscapes.
Local leadership is needed, yes, but local awareness of local conditions is a prerequisite. The residents need to catch a clue and find some spine: the courage to demand responsible change from the absentee landlords, or to do the job overselves, or both.