Mail Tribune News - Winds revive old slash fire

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Winds revive old slash fire Smoke startles I-5 travelers ASHLAND � Sunday drivers on Interstate 5 who thought they saw clouds of smoke around Wagner Butte weren�t dreaming. Strong winds at the head of a winter storm blew life into some previously burned slash piles about eight miles up Wagner Creek Road, raising dense smoke that was visible from the freeway late in the afternoon. By nightfall, the fire burned across 30 to 60 acres of timberland near Anderson Ridge, said Dan Thorpe, of the Oregon Department of Forestry. Thorpe said unseasonably dry weather helped the fire spread through timberland owned by Boise Cascade. Woody debris on the forest floor would ordinarily be too damp to burn in early January, but Southern Oregon has received less than half its average rain for November and December. Wind gusts of up to 36 mph were recorded Sunday at the National Weather Service station in Medford. Storm winds typically blow harder at the southern end of the Rogue Valley as they spill down the Siskiyou Mountains. Thorpe said about six firefighters from the Oregon Department of Forestry and Bureau of Land Management "rode herd" on the fire into the night with several loggers. Steep terrain prompted firefighters to wait until daylight to decide whether to use bulldozers to dig a containment line around the fire. Winter rains typically extinguish slash burns that are lit in the fall, but strong winds have been known to revive embers that have smoldered quietly for weeks or even months. Thorpe said state foresters would look at their records today to try to find out when the area might have been burned. He said the fire could be expected to stop when winds die down and rain dampens the forest floor.   Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.