There are many interesting other things to post about, but we seem to be one of the few outlets trying to cover Wildfire With Benefits, so here goes. Thanks to Nick Smith, this story from Newsradio 560 KPQ.
The Pioneer Fire on Lake Chelan has ballooned to nearly 19,000 acres as of Monday morning.
The fire has spread north along the shoreline and Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 evacuation notices have extended northward, with the Stehekin Valley area now under Level 1.
Chelan County Commissioner Tiffany Gering brought up the fire with fellow commissioners Monday morning during a public discussion.
She said there’s frustration among area residents that crews are trying to keep the fire from spreading, rather than trying to put it out.
“The comment that I constantly hear is they’re not trying to put the fire out,” said Gering. “That isn’t part of what the forest service does. From my understanding they used to. And now, that is a main concern of people is that it’s not happening.”
According to the incident management team handling the fire, helicopter bucket drops were being used Sunday morning, but fire activity increased and multiple spot fires established further up drainage near Dan’s Camp trail. At that point, crews were forced to disengage and move to a safe location.
The fire is now fully established on both sides of Fish Creek, which prompted the Chelan County Sheriff’s Office to issue the Level 1 evacuation advisory for the Stehekin area.
There are currently 786 crew members assigned to the Pioneer Fire. It’s now burning 18,731 acres about 10 miles southeast of Stehekin. The fire is currently 14 percent contained.
“Managing” a fire, this time of year, in the Pacific Northwest? What have we learned about outcomes, the communities and pure hatred for FS policies?
Just asking……. Good grief.
The Lake Chelan basin has an interesting history and story.
Lake Chelan is Washington’s Lake Tahoe. The small town has been taken over by Seattle residents who established wineries, and boutique shops, and of course, totally gentrified the entire basin. It is a very desirable wealthy enclave these days.
With little tolerance for wildfire smoke.
The new residents like the concept of “wild and natural forests”, but they don’t like smoke.
I spent twenty years working fires in the Chelan basin before my retirement.
During the Wolverine Fire, I ran into one of the Seattle businessmen, that flew his private airplane between his businesses on the coast and Chelan. It was his method for monitoring the fire and the lack of suppression response in his eyes.
He told me that the Forest Service needed to embrace the military concept of “acceptable casualties” when it came to fire suppression. The smoke was costing him money.
Three weeks later, there were three dead firefighters on the adjacent ranger district. I suspect this did not meet with his approval, since it was outside the Chelan basin. The current County Commissioner from Chelan is part of that crowd.
Those are the type of folks your dealing with in Chelan.
But Chelan’s fire history needs to be studied. A fire history map of the Chelan basin is worth studying. At one time the Chelan basin, was a large timber producer, and then the fires started and over a few decades the entire basin was converted to mostly brush.
It is important, since it appears to be the trajectory that we are following for the National Forests in the west. Do we really want to convert our National Forests to brush fields???
The Pioneer fire is important since it removes the “final” patches of trees from landscape.
Do we use fire to clean out the remaining forested landscape and then have a landscape that will accept summer fires while generating minimal smoke. It is the landscape that today’s Chelan community really wants as a desired future condition.
I am tired of the past 30 years of smoke, but we are so close to eliminating trees from the Chelan basin landscape and returning to smoke free summers in the Chelan basin.
Do we really want to put out the Pioneer fire at this point??
On the remaining National Forests in the west we are probably looking at another 30-40 years before this happens on a landscape basis.
It probably is time for a serious discussion with the American people on the future of their National Forests. I suspect they will vote for burning it down, and having the smoke go away as soon as possible.
Thanks for this, Vladimir! Though with the other western national forests, depending on where you are, and what exactly grows back, and how fast, folks might still get a lot of smoke. It’s so funny in a way.. smoke was something we lived with and was part of life. Now new people have moved in, and research tells us how bad smoke is (due to climate change funding), how will this change peoples’ thinking? Still, people in hot, dry climates and wildlife like trees, so there’s that.
Cynically those brush fields are sorrel forests.
Because of “safety ism” the daily IAP intones firefighter safety first then public safety. Should be the other way around.
Individuals in the risk professions have already made the Faustian bargain of risk/reward/salary for public service for which the mission is public safety.
This creeping safety ism is insidious and has spread from wildland firefighting and has infected the presidential candidate protection detail of the Secret Service. Where the assassin was on a sloped roof and made lethal shots, the Secret Service could not occupy the site because the roof was sloped. Instead the sniper squad was in the building while the assassin was on the roof? This truly is the best government money can buy!
We did not place snipers on the roof because it was kinda sloped.”
There is no reward without risk!
https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/16/secret-service-director-we-didnt-put-snipers-on-the-roof-because-it-was-kind-of-sloped/
From Inciweb: “Fire managers are using a full-suppression strategy to protect private property, public infrastructure, and natural and recreation resources, while minimizing risks to responders and the public. Part of the rationale for a full-suppression strategy is that the origin of the fire was on private land, and it is suspected to have been human caused. The communities of Stehekin, Chelan, and Manson are open and continue to welcome visitors.
Initial attack resources attempted direct tactics early on, but were challenged by the extremely steep and remote terrain on the east side of Lake Chelan that can only be accessed by boat or air. Full suppression efforts are being implemented utilizing a combination of direct, indirect, and point protection where the highest probability of success can be safely achieved. Firefighters continue to establish firelines and hose lays, working in conjunction with water-dropping aircraft.”
Personally, having once been a hairsbreadth away from deploying on a fire in South Dakota, I’m all for firefighter safety. I prefer not to be an armchair IC.
Thanks, Mike. Any idea why “full suppression efforts” looks/sounds to the local public like “they’re not trying to put the fire out?”
I think that’s the big question. Maybe someone at TSW is closer to this community/fire and can give us some background?
I could only speculate. Direct attack often isn’t used at the active front of a fire due to the risk. Maybe that is the concern by locals. We were criticized by some locals for our tactics on the 2013 Westfork Complex. Five days later 19 firefighters died in AZ and the locals backed off. Only one small pump house was lost on the 109,000 ac Westfork and there were no loss of work firefighter injuries.
Since the fire started on private land, the Forest Service is not the lead agency on firefighting – it is Washington DNR. The Inciweb information states that is it partly burning in the scar of the 2001 Rex Creek fire and that extreme terrain prevents direct attack – having vacationed at Lake Chelan a few years ago, I can vouch for the extreme terrain. If this fire was easy to fully suppress, it would have happened already. The fact that this fire is still burning five weeks after it started tells you something about the terrain and the firefighting conditions. And while there are a lot of people assigned to the fire, not all of them are on the fireline. The sit report shows there are 11 20-person crews and 27 engines and 7 helicopters, so maybe half of the people assigned to the fire are on the fireline. The remainder are providing support to the firefighters (communications, equipment, motor pool, security, weather forecasts, etc.).