Sean C. Morgan
The burn ban and public use restrictions were lifted on Friday, and fire season officially ended Monday morning based on the conditions and weather forecasts.
Fire season ended Monday morning based on the conditions and weather forecasts.
The summer started early, with conditions that were drier than normal all year long. The Sweet Home area is lagging nearly 30 inches behind last year, with just 16.66 inches of precipitation as of Monday.
While the true season-ending rain had yet to arrive as of Monday, the South Cascade District of the Oregon Department of Forestry, which includes the Sweet Home Unit, has experienced scattered rain showers in the past few weeks.
“We ended it whether we had an event or not,” said Sweet Home Unit Forester Craig Pettinger, but over the weekend, “we actually got a little wet. This forecast is pretty much the first one that came true.”
Regardless, fuel moisture is starting to increase with shorter days and higher overnight relative humidity recovery.
Pettinger noted that cars are covered in dew in the morning now.
Fire officials will remain cautious about slash burning requests until the area sees more additional moisture.
“We’re going to be looking for more rain before we start the slash burning,” Pettinger said, except in a few specific cases. Most timber companies aren’t ready to go yet anyway.
Over the weekend, the ODF received one report of a fire, a burn pile that got away off Ridgeway Road. The ODF took no action on the fire.
The Sweet Home Unit had a total call load of 107 fires this year, Pettinger said. Of those, the unit took action on 18.
Officials mostly warned property owners for violations, and they issued a handful of citations, Pettinger said.
Most fires were in the .01- to .1-acre range. The largest fires included a grass fire on Marks Ridge, 4.4 acres; Courtney Creek, 1.6 acres; and North River Drive, .5 acre. Less than 10 acres burned throughout the Sweet Home Unit this season.
The 10-year average is 130.98 acres per year, Pettinger said. That includes the 2006 Rocky Top fire, which burned more than 1,000 acres.
“The crews did have several good catches,” Pettinger said. The Marks Ridge Fire is one of them. The fire spread through grass and had just reached trees managed by Cascade Timber Consulting, burning less than .1 acre of timber.
The Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District had just been called out to a fire alarm at Foster School, Pettinger said. Catching that one was good luck.
The Courtney Creek fire took place in August during the Willamette Country Music Festival, Pettinger said. During that festival, the Sweet Home Unit had an engine hovering around the area ready to respond.
With that many people in one place, “you know something’s going to happen,” Pettinger said.
Most of this season, “we were setting records” with the level of fire danger, Pettinger said. “And we thought last year was bad.”
The energy release component graph shows the danger above last year’s levels and well above the average. A rating of 30 means fire will spread quickly. Much of the season, the ERC level was above that mark, and it reached above 54 twice.