By Richard Cockle
The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
Copyright 2006 The Oregonian
All Rights Reserved
Crews on the 13,437-acre Shake Table complex of wildfires southeast of Dayville in Grant County spent Wednesday digging lines and bracing for potentially active fires this weekend.
Temperatures now in the 60s and 70s could be back in the 90s by Saturday, said Barbara Lee, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Forestry near Dayville.
Firefighters were protecting a half-dozen homes that have been evacuated near the Thorn Creek fire in the complex, plus a grove of rare Alaska cedars that could be at risk, Lee said.
The Thorn Creek fire went on a rampage Monday that more than doubled the size of the complex, she said. Crews have only 15 percent of the complex lined.
The lightning-caused blaze erupted Aug. 21, and since then, crews have had encounters with elk, deer, cougars, coyotes and bear, including a sow and cubs, leaving the burning forest.
“They were just trying to relocate themselves,” Lee said.
Hunters, too, have had to relocate. The archery season for elk and deer began last Saturday and grouse and dove hunters will be in the woods Friday, she said. For some, this is a traditional hunting area that they’ve been unable to enter because of the flames, smoke and road closures.
Meanwhile, the season’s biggest wildfire in Oregon, the 117,553-acre South End complex between Frenchglen and Fields in Harney County, has been declared 100 percent contained. A few other fires also were nearing containment.
Eighty percent of the 12,946-acre Jim Creek fire in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area was behind fire lines. And the 5,500-acre Sharp Ridge fire, 27 miles north of John Day, was 60 percent enclosed behind fire lines and hasn’t grown in several days.
But crews continued to struggle with the 68,000-acre Columbia complex of fires north of the Oregon-Washington boundary near Dayton, Wash. Only 20 percent of that fire was locked up behind fire lines, and it was burning north toward the Little Tucannon River and last year’s School fire.