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Fire season�s far from over By Chris Bristol Don�t be fooled by all those "Back-to-school" sales popping up at local stores. Summer may be winding down for kids, but it�s far from over for firefighters. "Just because kids go back to school doesn�t mean the fire season is over," Greg Alexander, an Oregon Department of Forestry spokesman in Central Point, said Sunday. "We�ve been relatively lucky so far, but we�ve got a ways to go." Across the West, 76 major fires were burning on 869,000 acres last weekend. Montana has been hit the hardest, with 365,000 acres burned and some 50 homes destroyed. In Nevada, a pilot became the eighth firefighter killed fighting wildfires this year when his helicopter crashed while making a water drop on a remote blaze 50 miles east of Fallon. Firefighters are mopping up three troublesome fires in central and eastern Oregon, including a blaze 50 miles west of John Day that charred 8,000 acres. A fire near the California border was contained Saturday after it burned up to 150 acres near Klamath Falls. Lightning was believed the cause. The Rogue Valley has been spared for the most part, with the worst fire consuming 420 acres last week near Sams Valley. But the region has a history of late-summer fire activity. The key here is "late summer." Although the school year usually starts right after the Labor Day weekend, the fire season in Oregon usually lasts well into October. The two worst wildland fires in recent memory � Hull Mountain in 1994 and the Silver complex in 1987 � started in late August. Mary Ceglia, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service tanker base at the Medford airport, said nobody can predict with exact precision when the fire season will end. "At this point," she said, "it just depends on the weather patterns." And the weather patterns aren�t encouraging, at least to firefighters. The long-range forecast, courtesy the national Climate Prediction Center, calls for above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation. "It doesn�t look good," said Ryan Sandler, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Medford. "Were only in mid August. We�ve got a lot of fire days left." Of the four summer months � June, July, August and September � June is the wettest and coolest. June sees average precipitation of .83 inches, compared to .67 for September. The average temperature is just over 80, compared to 83 for September. July is the driest month, .25 inches, while August is the hottest at just over 89. "People have the mentality that June is real summer and that September is closer to autumn," Sandler said. "But September is probably closer to summer out here." All of which could spell disaster for anybody living in the wrong spot or camping in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Hull Mountain fire in 1994 � which burned about 8,000 acres, destroyed nine dwellings and killed a firefighter � started Aug. 23. The 1987 Silver complex fire in the Kalmiopsis wilderness and elsewhere, which charred over 40,000 acres, started Aug. 30. Southern Oregon has been spared any major fires so far this summer, but ODF�s Alexander said the combination of low-humidity and parched flora is making it increasingly difficult to keep small blazes small. "It seems like when we get a fire now, it�s getting harder to control," he said. Although lightning causes the majority of wildfires, humans start their share. Ceglia, spokeswoman for the Forest Service, said a 3-acre blaze last Thursday near Prospect apparently was started by a camp fire. "Be careful," she said, "and put out, I mean really put out, your camp fires." Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA