Rattlesnake Fire

Last week I wrote about the Poe Cabin fire in the Slate Creek Ranger District, and ways and means of protecting your home from wildfire. Now it’s the turn of the Rattlesnake fire in the Red River Ranger District. Thanks to Laura Smith of the NPNF information office, and Erin Fryer, the incident command staff information officer, I had the opportunity to tour the Dixie area and have a look at the efforts being made to protect our “small hamlet out in the woods” from the Rattlesnake fire, if it heads into town.

While driving up the South Fork of the Clearwater, I stopped for a moment near Hanging Rock, and looked at the river. While it’s not exactly a dry streambed yet, there certainly isn’t a lot of water out there. From all appearances we’re definitely deep in a drought situation, which isn’t doing our forests any good at all. I also noticed all the dead timber standing on the hillsides, killed by the infamous Mountain Pine Beetle infestation. An infestation that’s the result of a three-way team effort between mountain pine beetles, environmental lobbyists, and the federal courts, the latter of which won't allow the thinning of these high hazard fuels to take place. It’s too bad that we can’t do something besides “let it burn” to control that particular fire hazard.

At the Red River Ranger Station I linked up with Pete Buist of the fire staff, who would be my escorting officer for the day. As a civilian I wouldn’t be allowed to go near the active parts of the fire of course, but we could go past the road closure and take a look at Dixie. (It’s been about eight years or so since I’ve been in the area.) The changes in Dixie are a real surprise, as I noticed that several “new” and quite nice looking homes have been added to the townsite. The real surprise however is in the fire mitigation efforts being conducted by the fire crews. You might remember the “Bazillion” lodgepole pines that used to grow all over the town. I understand that most of them were killed by the Pine Beetles, and those dead trees “ain’t there no more”. The fire crews have removed them, and they are soon to be turned into slow burning mulch by the industrial strength chipper that’s been ordered, rather than left standing as giant torches awaiting only a match.

The town itself is barely recognizable, being hidden underneath what looks like miles of aluminum foil! The fire crews have wrapped much of the town in an aluminized fiberglass “Fire Wrap” material that’s intended to reflect the heat of a fire away from those flammable wooden buildings. At the same time, numerous Engine crews and a pair of twenty man hand line fire crews are working all over the area, further reducing the fire hazards as best they can. Any materials that might conduct the fire to the buildings is being moved to safer locations, while grass and weeds are being cut back from the walls a safe distance. Fire wrap is being applied to surfaces particularly exposed, and is also being used to cover the windows. This latter because the radiant heat of a fire can penetrate windows and ignite the contents of the room beyond. That of course sets the whole building on fire. Historical buildings such as the old Dixie School are completely wrapped, and I was particularly impressed to see that the old wooden memorial plaque at the Dixie cemetery was similarly protected. I did have to laugh when I noticed that the standard Forest Service “little house out back” was also wrapped. So many dead trees are gone, everything’s wrapped in aluminum, and yellow shirts are seen almost everywhere, in an attempt to turn Dixie into an island of safety in the midst of a potential sea of flame.

The Dixie store itself wears a silver skirt, and the windows are covered with fire wrap. Any part of a building where a flying ember might land and start a new fire is covered with fire wrap, including decks, porches and almost anything else that’s burnable. At one residence we noticed that firefighters had moved the winter woodpile away from the wall of the house, and had neatly stacked the offending firewood a few yards away. Most of the town looks like it’s covered with spaghetti (fire hose in reality), that connects numerous portable fire pumps to a massive sprinkler system designed to wet everything down if the fire approaches.

There are five engine crews from the Stanislaus-Trinity National Forest working in Dixie, cutting weeds back from the walls, removing flammables, and installing aluminum wrap over windows and flat surfaces. One of their firefighters, who calls the high desert area of Hemet California home, said he really liked this area, although it was definitely somewhat different from where he lives. Another Stanislaus firefighter is a young lady named Melissa (I missed her last name) who is working her first season as a firefighter. She says she enjoys firefighting, and plans to stay with it. I hope she does, firefighting is a tough job, and we need all the dedicated young people we can get. Melissa seems to be an energetic “go getter”, but I don’t think I’d want her on my Engine crew. I doubt I could work hard enough to even begin to keep up with her!

Firefighters aren’t just a bunch of folks doing a tough job either; they’ve got pretty big hearts as well. While I haven’t been able to get the whole story yet, it seems that one of the Dixie residents was having a hard time getting around town on an old motorbike. Noticing the problem, a member of the Corvallis Montana VFD Engine crew took up a collection from among the firefighters working in and around Dixie, and purchased the resident a four wheel ATV. At last report he’s pleased as punch, and now getting around quite well. The “instigator” was unavailable for an interview, being on R&R someplace.

There was to be a town meeting at 3PM where the Forest Service officials would explain what was going on, what had been accomplished, what was yet to be accomplished, and to run through the plans for any potential evacuation if the fire suddenly blew up. A number of residents gathered at the store prior to the meeting, discussing the current situation, and exchanging gossip, as I imagine has been occurring at the same location for the last hundred years. There was quite a bit of talk about the fire, and the Forest Service efforts, with the overall consensus of opinion being that the firefighters were hard at work doing everything they could, and were a great bunch of people as well. In talking to numerous firefighters I heard much the same story from the other side of the fence, in that the residents of Dixie were a great bunch of people who understood the problems and were more than willing to help in every way they could.

At the meeting, Jess Secrest, the incoming Incident Commander, and his staff explained the fire situation, forecasts, and planning, along with answering questions from the public. Jess has been in the fire business for 32 years, and is experienced in doing just about every fire job in the book at one time or another. He seems quite knowledgeable, and has a lot of confidence in abilities of his team. From talking with these people, I for one would say that Dixie is in pretty darn good hands.

I took quite a few pictures while in Dixie, and anyone interested can see them at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/nezperce/gvc/photogallery/1708rattlesnakefogarty/index.htm