COIC examines Cache Mountain Fire

Tom Fitzpatrick addresses participants in a tour of the Cache Mountain fire site.

On July 23 lightning struck a remote area on Cache Mountain, and local forest and fire officials knew within minutes that they had a serious problem on their hands.

What they didn't expect was how difficult it would be to convey the sense of urgency to agencies outside the local area.

Last week, the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council (COIC) conducted a public debriefing on the Cache Mountain Fire.

Scott Aycock, Program Coordinator for COIC, put together a tour to examine the fire, which turned into an open forum.

The approximately 70 participants included representatives of public agencies, private industry, the media, concerned organizations and interested members of the general public.

Tom Fitzpatrick, Assistant Fire Management Officer for the Forest Service in the Sisters area, personally witnessed the lightning strike that ignited the blaze.

Gesturing toward Cache Mountain in the background, Fitzpatrick said, "There were six ignitions that evening, and this is the only one that got away from us. I saw it strike, and almost immediately a column of smoke appeared."

Fitzpatrick said that, although the storm had a lot of moisture, it didn't rain over Cache Mountain.

"It was the one thing I've feared," he said, "a fire on the back side of Cache Mountain."

He explained that the remote and roadless area contained extremely dense concentrations of dead timber left over from a spruce budworm infestation several years ago.

A Black Butte Ranch resident, who declined to give his name, asked Fitzpatrick if the severity and spread of the fire were worsened by environmentalist appeals that delayed forest thinning in the area. Fitzpatrick responded that, "had the fuels been treated, we would have had a much better chance of stopping the fire."

Forest Service District Ranger Bill Anthony said, "there's no doubt about it that the appeals slowed us down."

He also observed, however, that the approval and implementation process for such a fuels treatment project takes more than two years.

As a result, he conceded, the thinning in question would probably have been only partially completed by the time of the fire.

A number of firefighters who were present expressed frustration at the low priority initially assigned to the fire. Officials indicated that the fire was first ranked 14th in priority for the region.

It was not until the fire had raged for a week -- and homes were lost at Black Butte Ranch -- that the fire was moved to the top of the list.

Because of the low priority and resource demands caused by other fires, only a handful of local firefighters were available to fight the blaze. More than 1,000 were eventually needed to bring it under control.

When the tour moved on to a portion of the actual burn, discussion shifted to thinning techniques, salvage and reforestation.

Weyerhaeuser representative Tucker Williamson said that the company had about 3,200 acres of timber in the path of the fire and about 1,100 burned.

He said that, due to the company's forest thinning and management strategies, however, only about 5 percent of the timber was lost.

One of the participants asked how long it would take for Weyerhaeuser to begin timber salvage on their affected land. Williamson said that logs were already being removed as he spoke.

On Forest Service lands, however, the issue of salvage is more involved.

"We're looking at those options now," Anthony said. "Probably the earliest that salvage operations could begin is next summer."

He explained that environmental documentation, issues decisions, and time for appeals would have to be part of the process.

Anthony said that approval already exists for some thinning operations immediately adjacent to Black Butte Ranch. As a result, he was optimistic that some rehabilitation could begin soon if funding becomes available.

"Regarding the area right along the west side of Black Butte Ranch, we could do some cleanup of burned trees under nine inches (in diameter) without additional analysis," he said.

"We would probably try to get that done before next summer."

Several participants complained that forest management practices should be entrusted to forest managers rather than to courts, committees, and special interest groups.

Carl Yee, Emeritus Professor of Forestry at Humboldt State University, said, "A lot of this concern over salvage is overblown. It's better to just salvage it now and get it out of here before this happens again."

Yee's concern for the future of Oregon's timber industry is reflected in some statistics on the dwindling timber harvest.

He said that last year's Oregon Department of Forestry figures reported that only 173 million board feet of timber were harvested from federal lands in Oregon.

"That's not enough to sustain even one medium-sized mill," he said. "Fifty years from now there won't be any mills left to handle the forest that's growing today."