Oregon fire is the largest burning in the US. A storm with lightning and high winds exacerbates it

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A wildfire burning in Oregon that's kicking smoke into neighboring states is now the largest active blaze in the U.S., authorities said, and a storm Wednesday with lightning and strong winds was prompting additional evacuations.

The Durkee Fire, burning near the Oregon-Idaho border about 130 miles (209 kilometers) west of Boise shut down part of Interstate 84 Tuesday as the flames approached the vital link between the states. The freeway briefly reopened Wednesday, but closed again as officials warned of frequent disruptions because of the nearly 400-square-mile (1036-square-kilometer) blaze.

The town of Huntington, Oregon, home to about 500 people, remained evacuated for a third full day, and authorities issued warnings about the coming storm to those who have remained behind. The blaze crossed the interstate near Huntington Wednesday afternoon and additional mandatory evacuations were issued. Wind gusts of up to 75 mph (121 kph), lightning and heavy rain was expected that could cause flash flooding and debris flows in recently burned areas, the Baker County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post.

The major electricity utility in the region, Idaho Power, warned customers to prepare for possible outages and by late Wednesday afternoon, nearly 7,000 customers were without electricity, the utility said.

Oregon fire is the largest burning in the US. A storm with lightning and high winds exacerbates it

A wildfire burning in Oregon that's kicking smoke into neighboring states is now the largest active blaze in the U.S., authorities said, and a storm Wednesday with lightning and strong winds was prompting additional evacuations. The Durkee Fire, burning near the Oregon-Idaho border about 130...

www.yahoo.com

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

 

[Margery]

Praying for all of us in the drought regions. It's another bad year.

Jasper Alberta in the Rockies between BC and Alberta got evacuated yesterday. They are pulling out the first responders now with fire crews remaining trying to save the town. Most emergency crews ordered out as wildfire reaches Jasper

Over a dozen fires between Kamloops and our daughter and son in law's farm in Clearwater earlier, I haven't checked further. Just in the last few days. It's shaping up to be a difficult fire season again. There's ash and half burnt bark bits that landed on my deck in the last few days.

Jasper is one of their evacuation routes to Alberta but that is blocked now. There are a few other routes and hopefully the road south to Kamloops can stay open. Kamloops is doing ok in spite of several fires nearby.

Our son in law bought some huge water tanks earlier this year in anticipation of a bad fire season so he can keep sprinklers going on the house, barn and animals if our daughter is forced out with the kids.

Yesterday we were talking and she's semi packed and ready if they call it.

 

[Margery]

A good amount of Jasper is in ruins, but the winds have died down and cooler weather is helping. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...ast-moving-flame-says-fire-official-1.7274825 shows the extent of the damage in the aftermath. The actual estimates are that 30-50% of the town was saved. As far as I can tell no lives lost by the absolute Grace of GOD!

In the Oregon fire situation a pilot was killed when his tanker plane went down fighting the Oregon fires. A tanker plane crash has killed a firefighting pilot in Oregon as Western wildfires spread more from that article.

"Communities in the U.S. West and Canada were under siege from raging wildfires on Friday, as a fast-moving blaze sparked by lightning sent people fleeing on fire-ringed roads in rural Idaho and a human-caused inferno forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes in northern California.

In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small air tanker plane that crashed while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states.

More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) were burning in the U.S. on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center."

Further down in the article it explains a little more about the pilot who died. It's awful to hear of the loss of these brave people who risk their lives to save others.

"In Oregon, a Grant County Search and Rescue team on Friday morning located a small single-engine air tanker that had disappeared while fighting the 219-square-mile (567 square kilometers) Falls Fire burning near the town of Seneca and the Malheur National Forest. The pilot died, said Bureau of Land Management information officer Lisa Clark. No one else was aboard the bureau-contracted aircraft when it went down in steep, forested terrain."

The article also mentions the Jasper fire saying this:

"The most damage so far has been to the Canadian Rockies’ Jasper National Park, where a fast-moving wildfire forced 25,000 people to flee and devastated the park’s namesake town, a World Heritage site."

And the article also mentions the other fires in the States alongside the Oregon fires. The entire western side of North America seems to be a tinderbox with wildfires running rampant up and down the dry inland mountain regions

Washington State:
"Late Friday, a new wildfire blew up in Eastern Washington that threatened homes, the railroad, Interstate 90 and the community of Tyler, which was evacuated. The Columbia Basin fire in Spokane County closed part of Highway 904 between the interstate and Cheney, Washington. Multiple planes, helicopters and fire personnel were working hard to contain the fire, according to the Washington State Patrol."

California:
"Others were human-caused, like the Park Fire burning in Butte County, California, just northwest of the community of Paradise where the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people and incinerated thousands of homes."

"More than 130 structures have been destroyed by the fire, and thousands more remain threatened. The state’s largest active wildfire began Wednesday when a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene, authorities said.

Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested early Thursday and held without bail pending a Monday arraignment, officials said."

 

[Margery]

This was a great article - an Op Ed piece written by someone who is a bit of an expert on the subject explaining why the "green" forest policy in the National Forests (here in Canada but I suspect in the States too) has led to this kind of extreme fire behaviour.

Opinion: 'Green' forest policy turned Jasper into a tinderbox

Part of the problem in Jasper is the policy of protecting the forest as the primary objective leaving artificial landscapes

edmontonjournal.com

"When the Rocky Mountain national parks were first established over one hundred years ago, the historical landscapes all featured a highly varied mix of vegetation, with forest on the montane slopes, but grasslands and low bushes dominant in all of the valleys and immediate uplands.

This natural state was the result of prairie fires frequently intruding into the front ranges, suppressing the forest growth in large areas of the parks. When the parks were established, though, this natural state was soon artificially altered by a policy of “protecting” all growth by the vigorous suppression of fires. The result was the gradual replacement of the valley bottom prairies and immediately adjacent uplands with ever-denser stands of coniferous trees (sometimes referred to by firefighters as “fireworks on a stick”).

This new, humanly created landscape gradually became accepted as the “natural state,” when, in reality, it is nothing of the sort.

This shortsighted policy was vigorously opposed by provincial officials who managed Alberta’s forests, out of fear that the parks were becoming tinder boxes which would not only destroy the federal parks but, once started and out of control, would spread into adjacent Alberta forests. These provincial forests, in contrast, were being actively managed by a wide variety of means, including controlled burns, logging, and allowing natural fires to run their course if lives or private property were not at risk."

The contrast between the way that the provincial forests were managed versus the federal policies in place over the National Parks is striking. It's the same in BC. Forests that are routinely clear cut, logged off or control burnt to manage the undergrowth are not as much of a problem. The clear cuts for example provide fire breaks and allow wildlife to move easily away from fires.

But the Sierra Club and other environmentalist groups often protest those same forestry management tactics, and have deep objections to any forest being logged off. Including when BC and Alberta were trying to get the Mountain Pine Beetle and Spruce Bud Worm infestations under control. Because the environmentalists didn't understand (or didn't want to) they stopped a lot of the clear cuts that would have allowed the forests to recover. And those bug kill zones aren't helping the fire situation any.

 

[Tall Timbers]

A good amount of Jasper is in ruins, but the winds have died down

Jasper is/was a pretty busy town, a major center for tourism and tourist dollars.

 

[1LoverofGod]

A good amount of Jasper is in ruins, but the winds have died down and cooler weather is helping. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...ast-moving-flame-says-fire-official-1.7274825 shows the extent of the damage in the aftermath. The actual estimates are that 30-50% of the town was saved. As far as I can tell no lives lost by the absolute Grace of GOD!

In the Oregon fire situation a pilot was killed when his tanker plane went down fighting the Oregon fires. A tanker plane crash has killed a firefighting pilot in Oregon as Western wildfires spread more from that article.

"Communities in the U.S. West and Canada were under siege from raging wildfires on Friday, as a fast-moving blaze sparked by lightning sent people fleeing on fire-ringed roads in rural Idaho and a human-caused inferno forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes in northern California.

In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small air tanker plane that crashed while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states.

More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) were burning in the U.S. on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center."

Further down in the article it explains a little more about the pilot who died. It's awful to hear of the loss of these brave people who risk their lives to save others.

"In Oregon, a Grant County Search and Rescue team on Friday morning located a small single-engine air tanker that had disappeared while fighting the 219-square-mile (567 square kilometers) Falls Fire burning near the town of Seneca and the Malheur National Forest. The pilot died, said Bureau of Land Management information officer Lisa Clark. No one else was aboard the bureau-contracted aircraft when it went down in steep, forested terrain."

The article also mentions the Jasper fire saying this:

"The most damage so far has been to the Canadian Rockies’ Jasper National Park, where a fast-moving wildfire forced 25,000 people to flee and devastated the park’s namesake town, a World Heritage site."

And the article also mentions the other fires in the States alongside the Oregon fires. The entire western side of North America seems to be a tinderbox with wildfires running rampant up and down the dry inland mountain regions

Washington State:
"Late Friday, a new wildfire blew up in Eastern Washington that threatened homes, the railroad, Interstate 90 and the community of Tyler, which was evacuated. The Columbia Basin fire in Spokane County closed part of Highway 904 between the interstate and Cheney, Washington. Multiple planes, helicopters and fire personnel were working hard to contain the fire, according to the Washington State Patrol."

California:
"Others were human-caused, like the Park Fire burning in Butte County, California, just northwest of the community of Paradise where the 2018 Camp Fire killed 85 people and incinerated thousands of homes."

"More than 130 structures have been destroyed by the fire, and thousands more remain threatened. The state’s largest active wildfire began Wednesday when a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene, authorities said.

Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested early Thursday and held without bail pending a Monday arraignment, officials said."

Update on California Park Fire

California wildfire explodes in size with no sign of stopping, scalding 307K acres
The largest California wildfire in three years has ballooned to over 307,000 acres — nearly the size of Los Angeles — and was still 0% contained on Saturday.

“The Park Fire continued to burn aggressively due to steep terrain and winds,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection wrote in an update Saturday morning.

New evacuation orders and warnings were issued to residents in multiple towns in the fire’s path through the northern part of the state’s central valley, the agency said.

More

California wildfire explodes in size with no sign of stopping, scalding 307K acres

The largest California wildfire in three years has ballooned to over 307,000 acres — nearly the size of Los Angeles — and was still 0% contained early Saturday.

nypost.com

 

[Margery]

That Park Fire was set deliberately by that man they arrested. People like that should be locked away forever.

4000 people evacuated, more to come yet, and it's now the 8th largest wildfire in California history. The damage to other people's lives is dreadful.

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

That Park Fire was set deliberately by that man they arrested. People like that should be locked away forever.

4000 people evacuated, more to come yet, and it's now the 8th largest wildfire in California history. The damage to other people's lives is dreadful.

People don't commit arson as a first crime.
Wonder what he did in the past.
Wonder if mentally ill and not properly treated/cared for.
Wonder who knew and didn't say or do something.
Bet he claims mental illness/not competent as defense, to not stand trial, and avoid penitentiary

The fires of Hell seem especially apropos, but he needs to get saved before he dies. Eternity is a very long time.

 

[Margery]

People don't commit arson as a first crime.
Wonder what he did in the past.
Wonder if mentally ill and not properly treated/cared for.
Wonder who knew and didn't say or do something.
Bet he claims mental illness/not competent as defense, to not stand trial, and avoid penitentiary

The fires of Hell seem especially apropos, but he needs to get saved before he dies. Eternity is a very long time.

your police experience is right as usual

from the article that Rose posted:

"Authorities said the Chico fire was sparked by a man pushing a burning car into a ravine in Bidwell Park on Wednesday afternoon.

Police arrested 42-year-old Ronnie Stout Thursday on arson charges.

Stout is currently on probation for a DUI, the Sacramento Bee reported, and was convicted of child molestation in 2001 and robbery with great bodily injury in 2002.

If found to have maliciously started the fire, Stout could face up to nine years in state prison but given his previous two “strikes,” he could get a life sentence under California law."

Here's hoping they quit sending him back out to try harder. Put him in for life and spare everyone the misery of having him commit more and worse.

 

[Ghoti Ichthus]

I'd love to see his mental health file (from his past charges, I'm virtually certain there is one)
and his juvenile record (his past charges are also not first-offenses)

Our mental health system needs to be fixed and the stigma done away with

Our criminal justice system needs to work with mental health professions as full partners instead of as incidental providers/contractors/privileges to actually rehabilitate and reintegrate people, and identify those, who need post-release real help instead of ignore or check-the-box. Too many way-over-worked Probation and Parole workers that realistically can't do much to actually help and provide real supervision. Not enough properly trained and experienced mental health professionals in prisons, especially lack of men.