|
BMIDC BRIEFING
|
||
|
Friday, July 31, 2015
|
||
|
7/30
(NEW) INTITAL ATTACK
|
Fires
|
Acres
|
|
Umatilla National Forest
|
1
|
.1
|
|
Wallowa Whitman National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Vale District BLM Baker Area
|
0
|
0
|
|
NEO Oregon Department of Forestry
|
0
|
0
|
|
WA DNR Snake River Unit
|
0
|
0
|
|
BIA Umatilla
|
0
|
0
|
|
Total
|
1
|
.1
|
|
INCIDENT
SUMMARY
|
||
|
July
30th
Inc. 734 (9 Mile), Walla Walla Forest Service protection, 26
miles ESE of Walla Walla, .1 acre, incident is controlled.
|
||
Friday, July 31, 2015
BMIDC's Morning Briefing
Thursday, July 30, 2015
BMIDC Morning Briefing 7/30/15
|
BMIDC BRIEFING
|
||
|
Thursday, July 30, 2015
|
||
|
7/29 (NEW) INTITAL ATTACK
|
Fires
|
Acres
|
|
Umatilla National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Wallowa Whitman National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Vale District BLM Baker Area
|
0
|
0
|
|
NEO Oregon Department of Forestry
|
0
|
0
|
|
WA DNR Snake River Unit
|
0
|
0
|
|
BIA Umatilla
|
0
|
0
|
|
Total
|
0
|
0
|
|
INCIDENT
SUMMARY
|
||
|
July
29th
Rye OR-974S-000681. IMT3.
38 miles N of Enterprise, OR. Start 7/23. 763 Acres. 100% contained. Returned
to the district for local management.
Blue Creek WA-SES-000653.
Blue Creek WA-SES-000653. IMT2. WA Team 1 (Ciraulo/Jennings). 10 miles E of
Walla Walla, WA. Start 7/20. 6,004 Acres. 85% contained with progress being
made daily. Expected demob starting today, Thursday, July 30th.
Will be returned to local management on Friday., 7/31.
|
||
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
A Busy Hub of Activity: Forest Service, other agencies depend on regional airport, fuel amid bustling fire season in the area
By Cherise Kaechele
The Observer
Pictures: Tim Mustoe
Monday July, 27th, 2015
While the Blue Creek Fire is not directly impacting Union County, it’s still very much affecting the area. The La Grande/Union County airport is a huge asset to the crews currently fighting the blaze that’s several hours away.
The Blue Creek Fire is eight miles east of Walla Walla, Washington, according to a news release from the incident information system out of Washington. It began a week ago and is approximately 50 percent contained as of Sunday. This human-caused fire is now the highest priority in the nation for wildfires because of the threat to Mill Creek’s watershed, Walla Walla’s only water supply, according to a news article from the Walla Walla Union Bulletin Newspaper
Union County Emergency Services Manager J. B. Brock said the fire is flirting dangerously close to the watershed — a significant problem that could have lasting effects to Mill Creek.
“That fire, depending on how it evolves, can go from a bad fire to a nightmare,” Brock said. “Depending on what it does over the next couple of weeks, that could easily turn into a nightmare scenario.”
The fire is estimated to have burned more than 6,000 acres as of Sunday, according to the release. There are evacuations already in place, including several road closures.
The fire season means an influx of revenue for Union County’s airport due to the number of planes flying into and out of the airport to fight the Washington state fire and the others in the area.
“Fuel sales is a major revenue source,” said County Commissioner Steve McClure. “Most people in the community don’t realize how engaged the airport is. The tanker base, the fire cache, rappel crews, hotshot crews are all using that airport year-round, but especially during fire season.”
A company out of Montana is using the county airport as a base for its tanker planes, which travel to Blue Creek and drop retardant then fly back to refuel and reload, said Union County Public Works Director Doug Wright. Wright said the fuel tanks at the airport are being replenished every day and the airport has been going through 10,000 gallons of fuel on a daily basis since this fire began. That’s all revenue for the airport.
“The fuel sales keep us going,” said Wright, who is also the airport director.
The Blue Creek Fire is not the first fire the county airport has assisted with this season, noted Larry Aragon, the air tactical group supervisor at the Blue Mountain Interagency Fire Center.
“The fire season started earlier in June,” Aragon said. “And it started with more ferocity. You can’t predict the kind of fire season we’re going to have. A week from now it can turn.”
Aragon said the tankers are flying in and out of the airport for a maximum of eight hours. He said he doesn’t know how many trips they can really make because sometimes it’s just a constant come-and-go flight. It just depends where the fire is and how much retardant needs to be dropped.
At the fire center, a small group of dispatchers oversee the management of fires across seven million acres of land, including the Blue Creek Fire.
Renae Crippen, the manager of the Blue Mountain Interagency Fire Center, said the Blue Creek Fire got so big that a separate team of dispatchers had to be called in from the base at the fire to focus only on that fire. She said that small group is taking care of 1,000 firefighters at Blue Creek.
The center focuses on seven different agencies, taking care of the crews and planes in the 7-million acre span. The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon Department of Forestry, Washington Department of Natural Resources and the Bureau of Indian The agencies are all constantly managed by the dispatchers at the fire center, Crippen said.
Another asset to those utilizing the airport is its fire cache, also located at the fire center.
The agencies call in orders to the fire cache located at the airport, where every supply a firefighter may need to fight a fire is stored. The orders are shipped out to the fires and can be loaded within an hour if need be, Crippen said.
McClure and Wright agree that during the fire season is when the airport’s budget is made. The revenue generated from the planes utilizing the airport can cover the whole year’s expenses.
Neptune, a tanker plane company out of Montana, is using the La Grande/Union County airport to refuel its planes and reload more retardant to fight the Blue Creek Fire as well as the other fires in the area.
BMIDC 7/29 Morning Briefing
|
BMIDC BRIEFING
|
||
|
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
|
||
|
7/28
(NEW) INTITAL ATTACK
|
Fires
|
Acres
|
|
Umatilla National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Wallowa Whitman National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Vale District BLM Baker Area
|
0
|
0
|
|
NEO Oregon Department of Forestry
|
0
|
0
|
|
WA DNR Snake River Unit
|
0
|
0
|
|
BIA Umatilla
|
0
|
0
|
|
Total
|
0
|
0
|
|
INCIDENT
SUMMARY
|
||
|
July
28th
Rye OR-974S-000681. IMT3.
38 miles N of Enterprise, OR. Start 7/23. 763 Acres. 100% contained. Returned
to the district for local management.
Blue Creek WA-SES-000653.
Blue Creek WA-SES-000653. IMT2. WA Team 1 (Ciraulo/Jennings). 10 miles E of
Walla Walla, WA. Start 7/20. 6,004 Acres. 73% contained with progress being
made daily. Expected demob starting Thursday, July 30th. Will be
returned to local management on Friday.
|
||
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
BMIDC 7/28 Morning Briefing
|
BMIDC BRIEFING
|
||
|
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
|
||
|
7/27
(NEW) INTITAL ATTACK
|
Fires
|
Acres
|
|
Umatilla National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Wallowa Whitman National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Vale District BLM Baker Area
|
0
|
0
|
|
NEO Oregon Department of Forestry
|
0
|
0
|
|
WA DNR Snake River Unit
|
0
|
0
|
|
BIA Umatilla
|
0
|
0
|
|
Total
|
0
|
0
|
|
INCIDENT
SUMMARY
|
||
|
July 27th
Rye OR-974S-000681. IMT3.
38 miles N of Enterprise, OR. Start 7/23. 80% contained. Returned to the
district for local management.
Blue Creek WA-SES-000653. Blue
Creek WA-SES-000653. IMT2. WA Team 1 (Ciraulo/Jennings). 10 miles E of Walla
Walla, WA. Start 7/20. 73% contained with progress being made daily. Expected
demob starting Thursday, July 30th. Will be returned to local management
on Friday.
|
||
Monday, July 27, 2015
Cooler Weather Helps Firefighters on the Rye Fire
July 27, 2015
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jamie Knight (541)786-0501
Good progress was made Sunday on the Rye Fire. The fire has been burning near the
Oregon/Washington border in Joseph Canyon in Wallowa County. The fire is burning in steep terrain, in
brush and grass. The fire started
following a lightning storm on Thursday and burnt on private lands protected
the Oregon Department of Forestry, including Nez Perce Precious Lands. The fire is currently 763 acres. The fire has
reached 80% contained and will be transitioning to a Type 4 Incident Commander
and the local unit today.
“The weather made a transition to cooler over
the weekend and that really helped us out.” said Joseph Goebel, Wildland Fire
Supervisor, Wallowa. “It’s important
that people don’t forget that the warm summer weather isn’t gone though. By next weekend, temperatures are expected to
be hot and dry again, and we ask that people use extreme caution when they are
out enjoying the forest.”
The weather forecast for the region is
calling for warming and drying by mid-week with temperatures climbing back into
the high 90s by weeks end. People that
are recreating in the forest are asked to check fire restrictions with the
Oregon Department of Forestry for public lands or the United States Forest
Service for public lands before going out.
Contact a local Oregon Department of Forestry
office for more complete information on ODF Restrictions.
La
Grande Unit (541)963-3168
Baker
City Sub-Unit (541)523-5831
Wallowa
Unit (541) 886-2881
Pendleton
Unit (541)276-3491
Please check with your local National Forest for public use restrictions
on National Forest land. You can visit the Umatilla NF website at www.fs.usda.gov/umatilla or the Wallowa-Whitman NF at www.fs.usda.gov/wallowa-whitman
or contact them by phone at Umatilla 541-278-3716; Wallowa-Whitman 541-523-6391.
http://bluemountainfireinfo.blogspot.com/
is your spot for current fire
information in the Blue Mountains.
To report a fire, call Blue
Mountain Interagency Dispatch at (541)963-7171 or dial 9-1-1.
######
|
BMIDC BRIEFING
|
||
|
Monday, July 27, 2015
|
||
|
7/26
(NEW) INTITAL ATTACK
|
Fires
|
Acres
|
|
Umatilla National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Wallowa Whitman National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Vale District BLM Baker Area
|
0
|
0
|
|
NEO Oregon Department of Forestry
|
0
|
0
|
|
WA DNR Snake River Unit
|
0
|
0
|
|
BIA Umatilla
|
1
|
.1
|
|
Total
|
1
|
.1
|
|
INCIDENT
SUMMARY
|
||
|
July 26th
Inc. 702, (Ditch) – Umatilla BIA protection, Human
caused, .1 acres, 1 mile SE of Mission, and incident is controlled.
|
||
Sunday, July 26, 2015
BMIDC's Morning Briefing
|
BMIDC BRIEFING
|
||
|
Sunday, July 26, 2015
|
||
|
7/25
(NEW) INTITAL ATTACK
|
Fires
|
Acres
|
|
Umatilla National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Wallowa Whitman National Forest
|
0
|
0
|
|
Vale District BLM Baker Area
|
0
|
0
|
|
NEO Oregon Department of Forestry
|
0
|
0
|
|
WA DNR Snake River Unit
|
0
|
0
|
|
BIA Umatilla
|
0
|
0
|
|
Total
|
0
|
0
|
|
INCIDENT
SUMMARY
|
||
|
July 25th
No Fire
Activity
|
||
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