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L/FOG Temp: 45 °F Wind: SSE at 3 mph Saturday, November 23, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend August 18, 2002 Brad Smith, a forester from the Texas State Forest Service, watches the Biscuit fire�s progress Friday on Chrome Ridge. He specializes in forecasting fire behavior. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Fire specialists analyze data, try to predict blaze’s next move By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune SELMA — Orange flames crept along the rocky ground, scrounging for fuel to keep it fed on the lean Chrome Ridge, deep in the Siskiyou National Forest. Upon reaching a stand of stunted ponderosa pine, the flames licked the base of a pine, then shot up into the needles to explode into a crown fire. "You are seeing complete combustion here," observed Brad Smith as he stood along Chrome Ridge Road. "The hills are ready. The table is set. "Put a heat source out there and it will start consuming," he added. As a fire behavior analyst for the roughly 420,000-acre Biscuit fire, Smith has a keen appetite for what, when and how the fire is consuming within the forest. On this afternoon firefighters are taking away its "dinner" by burning out the fuel between the main fire and the road on the northwest area of the forest. Using data compiled by a team of fire behavior specialists like Smith, their ultimate goal is to defeat the largest fire in the state since the 1865 Silverton fire burned 988,000 acres. The Biscuit fire was triggered by a lightning bolt July 13. Smith, 44, a lean forester on loan from the Texas State Forest Service, has fought wildfires for 22 years. While the bulk of his career has been as a firefighting grunt on the ground, in recent years he has been focusing exclusively on fire behavior. His 16-hour day began at 4 a.m. back in fire camp at Lake Selmac in Selma some 30 dusty road miles east of Chrome Ridge. But only after grabbing a cup of coffee strong enough to jump start a rusty bulldozer. "The stronger the better," he said. He compares the fire maps with infrared photographs taken overnight to make sure the fire is behaving as projected. If it isn’t, he immediately informs those on the front line of any changes. "I know where the people on the line are working," he said. "If I see something that can pose a threat, I let them know about it." By 6 a.m he is giving a fire behavior briefing to the firefighters’ leaders, telling them what to expect from the fire that day. After a quick breakfast and poring over more data sheets and maps, Smith presents a fire behavior forecast for incident commanders during a daily planning meeting at 10 a.m. That forecast will be used to prepare battle plans for the night shift arriving on the front lines late that afternoon. Quick to observe that all seasoned firefighters are fire behavior specialists, Smith is not working in a vacuum. He is one of the fire behavior specialists assigned to each of the four zones on the fire. Incident meteorologists study weather data from seven remote weather stations placed on the perimeter of the fire. Field observers on the front lines snap photographs throughout the day, map the progress of the fire and look for any changes in fire behavior. While Smith and his team are looking at short-term fire behavior, another fire behavior team working out of conference rooms in the Red Lion Hotel in downtown Medford is looking at long-term planning. They are part of Area Command Team No. 4, one of four such fire-fighting coordination teams in the nation. Leading the effort is Mark Beighley, a long-term assessment team leader with the U.S. Forest Service from Washington, D.C. "They are looking at one to two days out — we are looking anywhere from three to six days out to the end of fire season," Beighley explained. In Southwestern Oregon, the end of the fire season is traditionally in mid-October. In the conference rooms, computer whiz Dirk Shupe and long-term fire analyst Caroline Noble are using a computer program called FARSITE to get a handle on future fire behavior. "This is a fire behavior prediction model where you have landscape data — elevations, slopes aspects, fuel," Noble said. "You input weather data and fire conditions on the landscape. The computer will model fire spread for you, based on the information we give it." That information is then posted on an Internet site available to Smith. "The fire behavior analyst in the fire camps can then download that and compare the maps to what he sees in the field," Beighley said. "That way we get some validation back and forth. Modeling is a first stab on where the fire might go. We adjust it with what is actually going on." That’s why Smith invariably heads out to the fire to see up close how it is behaving. "I want to see what it’s burning in, see how it’s burning," he explained as he drove toward the Biscuit blaze. "I want to make sure my forecasting is on track." This marks the seventh fire he has been on this year. He started in New Mexico, went to Arizona, back to New Mexico, up to Colorado and back to Arizona and returned to New Mexico before heading to Oregon. The Biscuit fire is the second-largest he has fought this year, only slightly smaller than the roughly 440,000-acre Rodeo fire in Arizona. "Since April, I may have been home three weeks," he said. He is no stranger to Southern Oregon fires. He was among the firefighters from throughout the nation who battled the Silver fire, which burned some 100,000 acres in the 1987. Like the Biscuit fire, the Silver fire was started by lightning in a remote area of the Siskiyou forest. The 1987 fire wasn’t controlled until mid-November. "It was a little bit different job, working on a hand crew," he said. But it gave him a frontline look at the explosive potential for wildfires in the region. "When you are a ground pounder, you have some clearly defined objectives," he said. "You want to get an established line from point A to point B. "With fire behavior, you are looking at the whole fire, trying to predict what the fire movement will be over a certain period of time." Weather is one of the three main components of understanding fire behavior, he explained. "The other is the fuel and the third is topography," he said. However, while that is fire behavior in its simplest terms, the interaction of those components can be very complex, he said. "You change one component and it changes the characteristics of fire behavior," he said. "You change all three and you go into different dimensions exponentially." Winds are often the most difficult factor to predict when fighting most fires, he said. The coastal influence coupled with the inland heat and endless canyons of the Siskiyou forest create a myriad of winds, he added. "You add the topography with the valleys and ridge tops — upsweep and downslide," he said. "When an upsweep wind meets a ridgetop wind, which way will it go? "Wind is generally what pushes a fire in a certain direction," he added. "And, like a bellows action, you put wind on a fire and you are going to increase the intensity." The up-slope winds generally occur in the morning when the sun hits an east-facing slope, he noted, noting the same thing occurs in the afternoon on the west slopes. "Those winds constantly change as the sun changes position throughout the day," he said. While he relies heavily on the latest technology, Smith also looks to his experience and information gleaned from firefighters on the front lines. Atop Chrome Ridge, he stopped to compare information with Tom Heintz, a Forest Service firefighting boss from Dillon, Mont. "About 3 or 4 this afternoon that thing will start to pick up," Heintz concluded, adding, "Then we’ll see where we are." As if on cue, the fire perked up that afternoon, sending a column of smoke high over firefighters in soot-smeared Nomex watching over the burnout to make sure it didn’t jump the road. "Nice colors," Smith said as he looked up at the column before heading back to download his first-hand information. Meanwhile, he is not optimistic the massive fire will behave itself anytime soon. "They are talking about a warming and drying trend beginning Monday," he said. "That’s not good for fire behavior." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy webmaster feedback A D V E R T I S E R S