Black Butte Ranch prepares for fire

Sisters, Sunday, July 28, 10 a.m. -- Fire officials are keeping an eye on an imaginary "green line" between the Black Butte Ranch boundary and the Cache Mountain fire, which has covered about 2,100 acres and in some places is about one-half mile from the Ranch.

If the fire reaches the green line fire officials may call for evacuation (see Black Butte Ranch evacuation plans).

However, fire officials stress that these are contingency plans. No evacuation orders or warnings have been issued.

Bob Sandman, an incident team leader from Montana, spoke to an overflow crowd at Black Butte Ranch on Saturday afternoon, July 27.

The firefighters had a pretty good hold on the fire Sunday, but if the fire continued toward Black Butte Ranch from the green line it would take about 24 hours to reach BBR.

Sandman explained that the southern flank of the fire has been fairly well controlled but the northern flank has spread towards Highway 20. There were about 200 people fighting the fire Saturday and that was increased to about 350 Sunday, July 28, allowing crews to attack the fire at night for the first time.

Helicopters, retardant-dropping aircraft, 20 fire engines and bulldozers are currently being employed fighting the fire. A Proteus ground unit from Montana is on its way -- capable of carrying 3,000 gallons of water and working in very hot terrain.

"It works well in this type of terrain," said Sandman.

The fire is spotting in different directions, according to Sandman. Embers are carried by the wind and start new blazes.

The weather -- temperature, humidity and wind -- play an important part in these measurements. The next three or four days look pretty hot and dry.

The wind has been somewhat erratic and hard to predict where spotting will occur.

There's quite a bit of dry fuel -- white fir, Douglas fir and dead timber -- that makes controlling this fire difficult.