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County will poll voters on meth levy
Housing remains steady in Newberg
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Crews battle Sisters fire |
Local firefighters return from Black Crater Fire in
central oregon |
By Schellene
Clendenin, Newberg Graphic
reporter
E-mail Schellene at
sclendenin@eaglenewspapers.com
|
Just more than two weeks after lightning caused a fire that would
eventually threaten more than 600 homes and burn more than 9,200
acres near Sisters, the Black Crater conflagration has been 95
percent contained.
Fire departments from across the state, including from local
firehouses, were deployed to help fight the fire. They have been
sent home and hundreds of residents have returned to homes
threatened by flames fewer than three miles away.
Last week,
when the Oregon State Fire Marshal deployed a group of firefighters
and several apparatus from Yamhill County to help battle the
conflagration, the situation was tense.
“When we got there on the crest over Suttle Lake, we could see a
plume of smoke,” said Newberg Fire Marshal Chris Mayfield. Hot,
orange embers floated in the air when the crews arrived. In some
areas, smoke reduced visibility to less than 50 feet.
“(State fire officials) were worried about the fire spreading,” he
said. “We quickly checked in and went straight to the line for four
to five hours.”
Thirteen firefighters — which included personnel from Newberg,
Dundee, Lafayette, Dayton and McMinnville — made up what the fire
marshal’s office calls a “strike team.” Consisting of small,
maneuverable brush rigs and water tenders, the strike team was
expected to move from area to area as needed, putting out spot fires
and patrolling for hot embers. Their goal was to keep the blaze from
jumping roads and making its way closer to the Tollgate, Edgington
and Crossroads subdivisions.
“Engines defend the houses from fire that comes to them,” Mayfield
said. “Brush rigs can fight fire offensively before it gets to
houses.”
On July 29, the night the group arrived, the fire had broken off
into two fingers and crews worked to slow the spread of the fire.
That night, as Mayfield and the remainder of the strike team slept
in sleeping bags at the base camp, crews used a back burn — a
controlled burn set more than two miles away from the main
conflagration — to create a burned-out barrier between the fire and
the homes under protection. The back burn, along with higher
humidity and cooler temperatures at night, helped to bring the fire
partially under control.
On the second day, the crew awoke to frost on the outside of their
sleeping bags and returned to work. Although temperatures picked up
in the afternoon, the fire never got as big as it was that first
day, Mayfield said.
NFD Lt. Gert Zoutendijk said smoke and dust from the first day
masked how far the fire had spread. Halfway through the second day
crews were startled to see how close the fire had come to the
residential areas.
“We worked our butts off,” he said. “My assignment as engine driver
was to get water to (the men on the line). It was a good
experience.”
But before the group could make their way toward Sisters, fire
departments had to have plans in place to ensure that their
residents were taken care of, said Newberg Interim Fire Chief Al
Blodgett.
“Our first priority is always to be able to serve the residents of
our fire district as they expect to be served,” he said. “Any
volunteers that go must have prior approval from their employers to
keep them from losing their jobs.”
Sometimes crews are on the scene of the fire for as long as four
weeks, and employers must prepare for that if they are releasing
employees to go to a conflagration.
Often, because of that restriction, volunteers are unable to leave
town for an extended period of time, so career firefighters are
tapped to go to the fire, Blodgett said. The cost of the deployment
is paid by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and state
and federal governments.
Blodgett said in times like these volunteers and additional staff
members work extra shifts to cover for their fellow firefighters.
“If we were not able to shore up the shift, we would not be able to
send a unit if it were requested,” Blodgett said. |
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From
Aug. 9,
2006, Newberg Graphic
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