Sean C. Morgan
More than 200 wildland firefighter trainees attended fire school last week in Sweet Home just in time for the official beginning of fire season on Monday.
This is the 17th year the program has been hosted by officials from the Oregon Department of Forestry, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. The fire school prepares new firefighters for the rigors of fighting fire in the forests and in rural-urban interface areas.
“The main purpose of the school is to provide basic wildland fire training skills to new firefighters and give continuing training to returning firefighters,” said Incident Commander Craig Pettinger, who is now the permanent unit forester with the ODF Sweet Home Unit. “I’m really excited about this year’s school. It’s filled to capacity, and I think that’s a great reflection of what happens when federal and state agencies really pool their resources together for the common benefit.”
Trainees spent the first part of the week in a classroom setting, with classes on basic fire behavior, map and compass use, teamwork, safety, use of engines, tools and hose lays, fighting fire in the rural-urban interface and fire investigation.
Students slept in tents at Sweet Home High School and ate their meals communally to give them a taste of a real fire camp.
The week ended in a live fire exercise on Friday on property managed by Cascade Timber Consulting near 50th Avenue.
“The field exercise is a great opportunity for students to apply not only the fire suppression skills they’ve learned in class but also all of the wildland fire safety principles,” said Co-Incident Commander Paul Hiebert of the Sweet Home and Detroit ranger districts. “Without Cascade Timber, we’d have no place to conduct this important training, so we’re very grateful to them. Fire School has an outstanding reputation, and CTC is critical to that.”
Crews finishing their training may go to work quickly. Last year, some went to Colorado the next day, Hiebert said. “This year, we could do the same. They could be on the lines tomorrow.
Of course, there is a lot of experience mixed into those crews, he said.
Fire season on the national forest is hard to predict, Hiebert said. It’s highly dependent on the weather and ignition factors.
“People being careless keeps us busy,” he said. Lightning is also a factor.
“Fire season’s here,” he said. There’s been heavy rain, but “a little wind, and things’ll be burning quickly.”
Fire season went into effect on Monday, said ODF Sweet Home Unit Forest Protection Supervisor Chad Calderwood. Regulated use goes into effect on July 3.
Things have been looking all right with the area still in “green-up,” Calderwood said, but it will change quickly, noting that the slash piles in the live fire exercise took off quickly once ignited.
Even with the recent downpours, some of the fuels still hadn’t recovered from previous dry, hot weather, Calderwood said. June was average in rainfall and temperature, but July and August are going to be warmer and drier than usual.
Fire season initiated industrial fire precaution level I. Fire danger remains at low.
Oregon has 173 20-person private contract fire crews available this season. Thirty inmate firefighting crews and nine camp-kitchen crews are also set to come on line. Two converted DC-7 passenger airplanes can deliver liquid fire retardant to slow flames, while eight helicopters fly under contract to the ODF. Seven single-engine fixed-wing aircraft play a dual role of reconnaissance and air attack guidance.
Under regulated use, which applies to ODF-protected lands:
n Smoking is prohibited while traveling except in vehicles on improved roads, in boats on the water and on sand or gravel bars between the water and high water marks that are free of vegetation.
n Open fires are prohibited except at designated locations.
n Chain saw use is regulated.
n Use of motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles is prohibited except on improved roads.
n All vehicles must be equipped with a gallon of water or a fire extinguisher, shovel and ax except on state highways, county roads and driveways.
n Fireworks, sky lanterns, exploding targets, tracer ammunition and any bullet with a pyrotechnic charge is prohibited.
Mowing is allowed between 8 p.m. and 10 a.m.