Letters to the Editor 08/22/2018

To the Editor:

A city police department will provide local control and local accountability.

The startup costs will be high, but the benefits of having 24-hour coverage and dedicated patrols far outweigh the startup costs.

A local department of the city will be much more responsive to the values of Sisters.

The citizens of Sisters deserve a higher level of service and accountability.

Scott Anderson

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To the Editor:

Our family has had a cabin on the Metolius River for generations, and we adore the ancient forests that line her gentle banks. So I was quite disturbed when I recently heard that a visitor, at another summer home, had a very large fire in their pit.

This led me to the USFS where they confirmed that fires are only allowed in "designated" campgrounds. Sommer Moyer, special use permit administrator for the Deschutes National Forest, Sisters Ranger District, kindly gave me a raft of Extreme Fire fliers showing the current rules, and we distributed them to all 108 summer residences in Camp Sherman. While doing so, I had some interesting conversations, confirming my greater concerns, about campground fires.

Over the years I have seen some crazy stuff: people dragging oversized logs into small fire pits, fires that were burning bigger and higher than allowed, and smoldering fires left unattended. This summer has been no different. One night in particular we saw a very large fire in the campground across from us and when I visited the host to point out the potential danger, he was both unaware and disinterested.

The following day I returned to the Forest Service and asked a very simple question: When the forests are bone dry, the temps are in the 90s, the wind is blowing hard and the campgrounds are packed full of people, why do we still allow campfires? The surprising answer was that there has never been a wildfire caused by a "designated" campfire, so they see no reason to change policy.

Last Friday I looked at the weather report. There is a Fire Weather Watch stating possible thunderstorms coupled with high winds and almost zero precipitation.

Wondering what the fire department's regulations are around burning, I called the Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District. Turns out theirs are very similar to those of the USFS. Fires are still allowed in designated areas if they are a certain size and distance from structures. Apparently these types of fires have also never gotten out of control.

I fully appreciate the agencies that protect us from many dangers, sometimes putting their very lives on the line. But I don't agree with their assumptions that people are always going to make good choices about something as risky and unpredictable as fire. Human error has historically proven to be at the root of many disasters. So far we have been very lucky in Central Oregon.

Why not use a similar approach to designated fires, as with prescribed fires, and say "No Fires" unless "precise weather conditions allow."

This policy leaves no room for misinterpretation, poor judgment or insufficient monitoring. It would most certainly include July and August, our hottest months - a small price to pay for avoiding (as best we can) the very real possibility of even more massively destructive wildfires.

With all that is at stake now, in the era of catastrophic fires we cannot afford to still be at the "it won't happen here cause it never has" stage. Better safe than sorry!

Susan Prince