Forest Service takes a cautious approach

Waiting for the torch... Photo by Jim Cornelius

Littering the road's edge like so much roadkill are brown heaps of forest debris. Local residents are wondering how much longer the piles will persist.

Jinny Pitman, Fire Prevention and Education Specialist for the U.S. Forest Service says, "Mother Nature has a role in all of this."

Pitman and her cohorts are anxiously awaiting more precipitation.

"Even though we've had rain, you can see that, just below the surface, it's still dry," she said.

Pitman is part of a team of foresters who are working to make public forest lands safer through the process of fuels treatment, a program that fights fire with fire.

Pitman stressed the multi-agency aspect of the fall burning program and emphasized the role played by her counterparts at the Oregon Department of Forestry.

"The first thing I want to make clear," she said, "is that all of our burning on public lands is in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Forestry."

Together, the two agencies have plans to burn debris piles on more than 2,700 Sisters-area acres of public land this season.

"We have no broadcast underburning scheduled for this fall," Pitman said. Underburning employs low-intensity fires to consume combustible materials on the forest floor without igniting the forest canopy above.

The debris piles have been previously stacked by Forest Service and ODF employees and contractors as well as by inmate labor.

The use of inmates for fire prevention labor in local forests has been increasingly successful in recent years. Inmate labor has provided an economically efficient use of resources while teaching minimum-risk inmates skills and work ethic that may help them succeed in the outside world.

"Ignition of various hand and machine pile locations will be determined by current and projected weather conditions," Pitman said.

She listed waiting burn piles in areas near Black Butte Ranch, Tollgate, Crossroads, Indian Ford, Suttle Lake and the Highway 20 corridor.

"We are looking for a good ground saturation before we get into Black Butte Ranch," she said.

"The people there are screaming to get rid of those piles, but we don't want to take a chance. We're waiting for good precipitation before we ignite those piles around communities."

Burning has already commenced in some areas.

"We're already burning south of Corbett Sno-Park and in the higher elevations where we've had more moisture," Pitman said. "We're also burning near Camp Tamarack, so there will be smoke in the Suttle Lake area through (this) week."

Pitman is hoping that a low pressure system will bring more rain soon, so work can begin at lower elevations.

Regarding the unsightly piles along the highway she says, "It would be nice to light them now while they're still dry so we can burn them hot and fast, but we have to be careful. There's still a lot of potential for an escaped fire."

She points out that the hot fires burn faster and cleaner with less smoke, but the foresters have to balance that consideration with safety concerns.

There are manpower considerations, too, since seasonal employees can only stay on the payroll for a fixed amount of time.

"When the right weather does come," she lamented, "Then we never have enough people."

Some of the burn piles are from rehabilitation efforts following the Eyerly and Cache Mountain fires.

There are approximately 300 machine-stacked piles atop Green Ridge which are the product of Eyerly rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Green Ridge fire break. It is also likely that a timber sale will be generated from the Green Ridge work.

Machine-stacked piles tend to be larger and more dense than hand-stacked piles and burn hotter.

A number of machine piles have been thrown up from rehabilitation work in the Cache Mountain fire area, as well. Salvage of charred trees from that fire is still under consideration, as officials weigh the options and try to apportion fiscal and support resources.

Private lands affected by the fire have already been salvaged.

A number of machine piles in Camp Sherman's Heritage Demonstration Project are also awaiting the torch.

Here again, weather conditions will play a role. In addition to the moisture balance, forest officials are also cognizant of the smoke issue.

"They have so many air inversions in there," Pitman said, "we don't want to smoke them out."