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United against fire Residents of the Applegate Valley are working on a plan to reduce the threat of wildfire near their homes By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune When Sandy Shaffer looks west from atop the forested knoll high in the Little Applegate River drainage where she and husband Don built their home, she is a bit concerned. The vegetation on the western slope is too thick, posing a hazard should a wildfire show its flaming face during the dry season. "That's our Achilles' heel," she said. "We've thinned out some of it, but we need to do more. That's an area where a fire could cause us some problems." It's a concern shared by many homeowners in the Applegate River valley, a half-million acres where wildfire suppression has been the rule for more than a century. The result is what many foresters say is an unnatural density of trees and brush. Shaffer and Jack Shipley, who lives at the other end of the Applegate Valley, hope to do something about it. They are the project coordinators in a grass-roots effort to create an Applegate Fire Plan, in which neighbors work together with state and federal agencies to reduce the threat of wildfires to their homes. They hope to have the plan completed by fire season, which normally starts in mid-June. They started on it about the time lightning lashed out last August, sparking the Quartz Fire. That blaze ravaged more than 6,000 acres in the Little Applegate River drainage, destroying three remote dwellings. After the smoke died away, the cost of suppression and continuing rehabilitation totaled some $13 million. The plan aims to reduce fire suppression costs as well as hazards. It is being coordinated by the Applegate Partnership, a group dedicated to improving ecological and economic health in the Applegate Valley. Shipley is a founding member of that group. "We're going back to the basics, empowering neighborhoods to plan ahead," Shipley explained. "Rather than wait for the 11th hour in an emergency, landowners can become prepared." The plan calls for them to work with each other and with government agencies in the event of any natural disaster, be it fire or flood, he said. "Landowners have a direct involvement in the direction of this plan," he stressed. The emergency preparedness work being done in small neighborhoods will be backed up by fire districts and federal and state agencies in time of emergency, he said. "In some ways, this is just reconnecting neighbors the way it was in the old days," Shipley said. "People can use this as a good excuse to finally meet their neighbors." By using the watershed instead of the traditional community boundary, the Applegate residents are taking on a tall task, observed Barbara Kennedy, cooperative fire specialist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's regional office in Portland. "The Applegate strategic plan is more complex than the strategic fire plans being created by other communities," said Kennedy. "The communities are taking this difficult issue into their own hands, and trying to do something about it," she added. "They are trying to bring the entire community together. That's a lot of work." There are some 7,400 households in the watershed housing about 12,000 people, few of whom have the same points of view. "But most folks can agree on goals and general methods to reduce fire hazards - there is room for everyone to have their own objectives for their own piece of land," said Ed Reilly, a Little Applegate River drainage resident for 28 years. "One may emphasize wildlife, another growing commercial trees," he added. "There is room for everyone to work together on a landscape level." Reilly is a veteran U.S. Forest Service firefighter. He is now an environmental planner for the Applegate Ranger District. He is among the team of Forest Service, BLM and state forestry specialists working with the Applegate Valley residents on the fire plan. "It's coming together well," he said. "I also see it as a good educational tool for the community, for people to get to know each other. There are a number of residents here, both old-timers and newcomers, who have a lot to share with each other." Reilly can tell you about wildfires in the area. Lightning sparked a fire on his 20-acre parcel in 1969, then again in 1987. "As a resident watching things, I've seen a lot of changes, both in tree species and in the density," he said. "Where we had large overstory trees and limited understory, we now have a lot more brush and shrub species coming in. "Now, when a fire does come through, instead of a low-intensity fire, we often have a high-intensity fire, sometimes a crown fire," he said. Pat Gordon, who has lived on 80 acres west of Ruch for more than 30 years, began thinning dense areas along her home and driveway after a drought killed trees. Other neighbors - the lion's share of the 75 families living in her neighborhood - have followed suit. "We're plugging along and looking at the fire plan as a means to further add to the existing work we've done," she said. "We've got a good start on things in our neighborhood. "But they are getting this fire plan together at breakneck speed," she added. "A lot of people who haven't been involved are getting involved. I'm excited about it because it provides the opportunity to increase education and promote land stewardship." Although agencies are there to offer advice and expertise, the plan is being directed by the community, said Tom Murphy, wildfire management officer for the BLM's Medford District. "This project is extremely well organized with a lot of support and tons of energy," he said. While the plan won't stop fires from occurring in the region, it likely will reduce the dramatic impact of those fires, he said. "When we do treatment, it will increase our ability to keep a fire small," said Murphy, who has worked in the district for 22 years. "The high density we have in the Applegate Valley now is unnatural. When you've precluded fire as long as we have here, you are going to have high intensity wildfires." Without suppression efforts, wildfires would normally burn through a section of the drainage every 15 years or so, typically removing brush and other vegetation while leaving the bigger trees largely unscathed, he said. The Rogue and Applegate valleys now have the highest fire risk of any areas west of the Cascade Range, said Jim Wolf, fire prevention planner for the Oregon Department of Forestry in Jackson and Josephine counties. "This plan is a good thing for everyone," said Brett Fillis, fire chief of Jackson County Fire District 9, which protects dwellings in the Applegate Valley. "The bottom line, if we can reduce those fuels, that's where we need to be." After all, it's cheaper to reduce fire hazards than hire more firefighters or buy more fire equipment, he noted. "If everyone does their part, this plan can make a big difference," he said. Shaffer agreed. "This is totally a grass-roots effort," she said. "We all know it won't work without the community behind it." They also know that they won't be able to stop all fires, just make them less ferocious, she said. "We hope that maybe 20 years from now, we'll have fewer fires and the cost of firefighting will be a lot less," she said. "That's one way we will be able to measure the success of this project." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.