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This fire started about 2:30 pm yesterday, I watched it blow up the first couple hours. It is about 3 nm from my location. They got some water and retardant tankers on it last night, it laid down pretty good overnight, some light smoke showing up in that area this morning.

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This was going wide open last night.
 
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And we just had a little rain this week too.

I was hoping it would dampen the chances of something like this happening since I am up on a forested mountain with lots of dry grass along the roads and in fields just waiting for someone to be careless with a cigarette or something. People been shooting up here too (fortunately it is not very rocky, mostly dirt). Very dry still. One of the more dry and warm summers I can remember for a long time.

I have been working at removing fuel around my house. Had big trees thinned and brush removed, but still a LOT of fuel on the ground from the thinning and big slash piles waiting for the rains to come before we can burn them.
 
100 feet or more of green or defensible space around your buildings will keep any fire away. If a person lives in a rural setting, that space will save your property. If isolated I would invest in a fire suppression pump set up with foam injection, you could stand it off pretty well.
 
Yeah - working on it.

Ran out of money this year - spent a lot on property improvements, although I got paid for the thinning and the brush clearing came free. The thinning left a lot of branches on the ground, and now that fall is here the leaves and conifer needles are falling. But still the larger space between the trees and the brush removal should help. I had them take about half the trees, but neighbors clear cut which itself gives some protection.

Next year, after I build up my cash reserves some more, I will probably pay to have someone come in with equipment and remove some more brush. I was going to buy the equipment, but once I looked at the cost and the maintenance, it was cheaper to have someone do it yearly or every other year.

There is various foam products you can buy to cover your house with that will help protect it from fire for about a day. I will probably get some of that.

Eventually I will get a fire pump too and some other stuff. One thing at a time. Keeping busy with lots of projects and cleaning up the brush. Waiting for the weather to cool down before I go out and cut some more firewood from the left over junk logs.
 
New neighbors got a Bob Cat with forks on the bucket and used it to clear 2 acres of brush but a 65,000 pound track hoe w/a thumb can swing an 14 foot long 12" I beam and clear/grade 2 acres in 2 days, plus push it into a burn pile!
I am very lucky, even now my property #2 is soaking wet from sub irrigation as is all the pasture around me! The only thing that can burn is the tops of some dead weeds:)
Site #1 is wet but real vine maple jungle, if a fire started I'd save the meat in the freezer and let the rest burn, it would regrow in two years!
 
3 Fires started around the same time all in a line down from Haag and the other 2 along 26 on the way back to Portland.
Any word on what started this one ? And maybe what started the other 2 brush fires ?
Maybe a connection ?
 
This fire started in some slash they had been working the last few days. It is private timber ground, monoculture reproduction. The heaviest burn was in the slash and younger reprod yesterday. Today it was in 15 year old reprod and a lot lighter fuels and less heat.

No containment but I was up there all day on photography work and I am pretty impressed with the ODF response. Even before they took official command they were moving resources. In one group there was 13 semis with kitchens, showers, laundry, supplies, two semi loads of refrigerated goods, probably close to 100 pieces of conflagration equipment, 6 dozers, 25 tenders, 3 Huey buckets, 3 Type 3 Shiorsky Green Giant helos. Listened to them on about 6 different radio frequencies. Very disciplined and controlled response.
 
This fire started in some slash they had been working the last few days. It is private timber ground, monoculture reproduction. The heaviest burn was in the slash and younger reprod yesterday. Today it was in 15 year old reprod and a lot lighter fuels and less heat.

No containment but I was up there all day on photography work and I am pretty impressed with the ODF response. Even before they took official command they were moving resources. In one group there was 13 semis with kitchens, showers, laundry, supplies, two semi loads of refrigerated goods, probably close to 100 pieces of conflagration equipment, 6 dozers, 25 tenders, 3 Huey buckets, 3 Type 3 Shiorsky Green Giant helos. Listened to them on about 6 different radio frequencies. Very disciplined and controlled response.

Yes they have had more practice than they should have. Very proficient. We spent a week watching them at the sisters area, and were camped by the lakes below Mt Washington, where they were dipping from. Damn they can fly those copters.
Took thousands of images of them all over the area Have some cool shots from Sisters too when there was a pinhole sun and a black sky. it got unbelievable blackout dark there in mid day. They are damned proficient at fighting them when allowed to. It was a lot easier to fight them back in the days when there were logging roads into all the areas.
At least up at Hagg they had roads in. Yeah, I saw those big slash piles that were on fire there. HOT...
 
I was logistical support for the Cold Springs fire in 08, it's the new age gold rush, city springs-up over night, 1st rate chow, showers, laundry, even had a movie room and that was for the folks that never got near the fire!

REMFs
 
I was a structural firefighter for a number of years, and then spent a few years hauling equipment into the fire camps. 2 of my sons are career firefighter locally,and the whole business is very well organized.

This fire is less than 1/2 mile off the pavement and from the 1100 acre lake. There are paved areas for staging, improved areas for camping and mustering, and it is behind a 1000 foot ridge for some protection from the east wind. Today was that transitional day where you get all your assets in place and then go kick it's a** tomorrow. They did a great job on it during the start up yesterday and kept it reasonably contained. The fire behavior today was less erratic and the winds diminished greatly, no smoke heads and fire ropes like I saw yesterday.

My hat is off to them, they are doing a great job.
 
This fire started in some slash they had been working the last few days. It is private timber ground, monoculture reproduction. The heaviest burn was in the slash and younger reprod yesterday. Today it was in 15 year old reprod and a lot lighter fuels and less heat.
they weren't actually burning the piles were they?

They aren't supposed to this time of year.
 
There's no telling; japan had plans to set the PNW afire, They did start fires and they killed a preacher , his wife, and some children in the attempt; Balloon Bombs
Yes, I do keep track of history, I'm a walking text book
 
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they weren't actually burning the piles were they?

They aren't supposed to this time of year.

They were probably doing some work on them, not burning them, but hoot owl rules say you have to be done in the woods by 1 pm and you have to have a fire watch posted for 1.5 hours after that. It was about 2;30 the call came down.

That being said, it is fairly close to town and there is a fair amount of questionable activity by individuals up there as well as about 2 elk herds in the drainage, with elk bow season on right now. :eek:
 
There's no telling; japan had plans to set the PNW afire, They did start fires and they killed a preacher , his wife, and some children in the attempt; Balloon Bombs
Yes, I do keep track of history, I'm a walking text book
If someone wanted to lit up much of the PNW it would be very easy to do with a little smarts. A flare here, a flare there, pretty soon it would be more than the firefighters could handle.
 

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