Sean C. Morgan
Carl Lemmer doesn?t think they?ll make any movies about fire patrol.
But one ATV rider he talked to thought it would be a cool job and an awful lot of fun. Lemmer didn?t disagree.
He spends his summer days driving around the mountain forests looking for smoke, checking lightning strikes and talking to people.
Lemmer has worked for the Oregon Department of Foresty since he graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1986, the same year as the gigantic Calapooia Fire.
?You do the fire patrol so that potentially you put a fire out somewhere,? he said. This year, the Sweet Home Unit has not had any fires to speak of. A power line fire, a lightning strike and a stump fire had burned perhaps three-hundredths of an acre.
Most of the incidents he and others have had were illegal burns and checking lightning strikes. They also deal with a large number of abandoned campfires.
Campers often struggle with the depth of heat in a fire and end up leaving it, a potential fire, Lemmer said. Though they haven?t had many fires to deal with, they?ve stayed busy.
Lemmer?s patrol area includes Quartzville Corridor, the only place in the Sweet Home unit where large numbers of recreationists gather. He spends much of his time talking to campers along the route and promoting fire prevention. He looks into camps to make sure fires are inside fire rings and that no campers have any fires at all on the left side of the road.
Right now, campfires are banned except in designated campgrounds and fire rings.
Lemmer?s territory includes mostly private lands, including Weyerhaueser, Cascade Timber Consulting and Gustina. It also includes Bureau of Land Management lands under contract.
The territory stretches up Quartzville Road and Highway 20 to the Willamette National Forest. Inside the Forest Service Sweet Home Ranger District, is a checkerboard of private and forest land, which is watched by the Forest Service. Those lands just went into regulated use, with no campfires allowed except in designated areas.
?We used to do a lot of work when federal logging was open,? Lemmer said. He and his fellow firefighters would burn logged units and dig trails. Since the spotted owl issue was raised in 1989, the job has turned mostly to looking out for fires and enforcing regulations.
As he talks to campers, he directs their attention to the restrictions of regulated use, such as the requirement to carry a gallon of water, a shovel or a fire extinguisher in vehicles when off paved roads. That restriction is only a couple of years old.
As he talks to campers, he gets to know them, and they recognize him and talk to him when they return year after year.
Lemmer doesn?t enjoy citing campers. Rather, he prefers to get them on his side. When they?re on his side, they follow the regulations and report problems. Once they?re participating in fire prevention, the unit has relatively few problems.
There?s an added benefit for campers.
Pulling up at a campsite, Lemmer greeted campers two weekends ago.
?I didn?t know you were here or not,? he told one of the campers. ?But that spot you guys like is open.?
After observing the area for 15 years on patrol, Lemmer said, behavior in the area has improved over the last couple of years, thanks mostly to resident State Trooper Craig Flierl who patrols the area under contract.
?He has made a big difference up here,? Lemmer said. ?There was a lot of things that went on up here that I have no control of.?
?There?s one difference with Quartzville from all of the other property we protect,? Lemmer said. ?People are allowed to be here, people are allowed to come here and recreate. These regulations apply to protect the timber we?re going to harvest.?
Lightning strikes are a key concern for fire patrol. He spent one Saturday morning looking at one lightning strike tracked by satellite. When near a strike, he looks for smoke.
Lightning can smolder for days in a stump or tree before turning into a full-blown forest fire. The Twin Buttes Fire on the Sweet Home Ranger District a couple years ago was started by a lightning strike that must have smoldered for five days.
Sometimes, a storm can bring so much lightning, maps turn black, Lemmer said, but those storms usually are wet enough to stop fires on the west side of the Cascades.