Wildfire burns Illinois Valley house and two outbuildings – Medford News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2003-06-30

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Wildfire burns Illinois Valley house and two outbuildings Jun 30, 2003 12:00 AM A A CAVE JUNCTION ' A house and two outbuildings burned and residents evacuated an Illinois Valley mobile home park after winds and high temperatures sparked a wildfire Sunday. An estimated 50 acres of grass and timber were burning off Daisy Hill Road near Cave Junction Sunday night, according to Sara Nicholson, emergency manager for Josephine County. Jackson County wildland task force crews joined local, state and federal units to fight the blaze, said Capt. Larry Decker of Jackson County Fire District 5. It's the first large fire in the area down here, Decker said. Residents of the Ol Jo mobile home park, 156 Ollis Road, were evacuated to a Red Cross shelter at Illinois Valley High School, Nicholson said. — The fire, which started after 4 p.m., was the largest of about 20 reported in Josephine County after noon on Sunday. It forced the day's second activation of Jackson County's Wildland Forest Task Force. That is a cooperative multi-agency designation that ensures adequate response when homes are threatened by fire. Decker expected fire crews to work through the night to contain the blaze. No details about the burned home or other possibly threatened residences were available at press time. Elsewhere in Oregon, two fires burned in the Cascade Mountains and two in the southern Coast Range, scorching a total of about 3,750 acres and causing two campgrounds to be evacuated. No homes were threatened. Heat is the primary cause. Heat has helped them burn extremely rapidly, said David Widmark, spokesman for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. The wind-blown Davis Fire near Davis Lake 12 miles east of La Pine burned 3,000 acres by late Sunday as 500 firefighters and two air tankers battled the blaze. Fire officials evacuated the Round Swamp, Reservoir and North Davis Creek campgrounds, as well as recreation cabins at Wickiup Acres, and several roads in the area were closed. A second fire broke out in the Cascades Saturday seven miles east of Breitenbush Hot Springs in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness area. The Bear Lake fire burned about 30 acres of mountain hemlock and fir, Widmark said. In the Coast Range, crews continued working on containment of the 650-acre Sulfur Creek Fire burning second-growth fir near a logging operation 20 miles east of Florence. The fire was estimated to be 30 percent contained. Farther south, the Cassady Creek fire near Reedsport burned 65 acres, Widmark said. The cause of the fires was under investigation, Widmark said. Widmark said more fires were likely because more than 300 lightning strikes came through the Northwest on Sunday, about half in Oregon, mostly in the north-central part of the state. The Associated Press contributed to this story.