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M/CLEAR Temp: 66 °F Wind: N at 3 mph Friday, August 2, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Cyberchef E The People Golf Job Network Headbone Zone Wellness Connection Movie Times Newspaper in Education Oregon CarZone Outdoor Journal Personals Prime Times Real Estate Tempo A & E TV Times W3 Magazine CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Destinations Automotive Communities Employment Entertainment Publications Real Estate Recreation Shopping Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Jobs @ Mail Tribune Email Story to a Friend August 1, 2002 Firefighter Karyn McNeil of Riddle sets fire to brush as the "burns out" on the Timbered Rock fire ner Trail. Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Timbered Rock crews set ‘burn-out’ fires By blackening the area between fire lines and the main blaze, the fire is robbed of fuel By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune When a fire gets big, it takes more fire to stop it. Firefighters can quench an ordinary house fire with water. There’s almost never enough water to stop a wildfire, especially in July and August, when creeks shrink to trickles and rain’s a distant memory. To halt the huge fires raging across Oregon this summer, firefighters often are lighting their own fires, slowly reining in the big flames by starving them of fuel. Firefighters have been "burning out" on the Timbered Rock fire near Trail for the past few days. Step by step, they’re making a "black line" around the fire by burning all the flammable material inside the containment lines. "Burning out secures the control line," said Karyn McNeil of Riddle, one of many firefighters who helped burn out the Timbered Rock fire this week. She dribbled a mix of diesel fuel and gasoline on the forest floor from a torch that holds a flame without igniting the contents. Lighters also use hand-held flares known as "fusees." Fire sprouted around McNeil as she poured flame across the hill. Smoke roiled up the slope from fire made by other lighters working above her. Trees squealed, crackled and popped as wood expanded and pockets of pitch ignited. Now and then, a dull roar like a jet engine cut through the general fire noise as a whole tree ignited in a flash of light. Within an hour, fire covered a wide swath of forest floor, blackening the area from the edge of the fire down to a road that served as the containment line. "That’s the objective," she said, looking at the hillside. "Pretty fire with green trees above." Burning out is one of two critical steps for containing a wildfire, forester Jeff Schwanke told Elk Creek residents at a public meeting during the Timbered Rock fire. "The first thing we do is construct line," said Schwanke, district forester for the Oregon Department of Forestry. "Then you make it black to the line." Burning out should not be confused with "backfiring." Firefighters may set a backfire to meet an approaching wildfire, hoping that the two will burn each other out. A backfire is typically larger than a burn-out, and firefighters have less control over it. Firefighters burn out where they can’t build containment lines adjacent to a fast-moving wildfire. Sometimes a fire may be too hot to work close to the flames, or the terrain may be too steep or rocky. They build fire line with bulldozers and hand tools as close to the flames as they can, then slowly apply controlled fire to any unburned areas. Teams of lighters have been scrambling across the hills around Elk Creek during the Timbered Rock fire, trickling liquid fire — a few drops on clumps of dry ferns, a trickle on downed logs, rings of fire around clusters of manzanita. As the dry fuels catch fire, the flames quickly spread to other brush and small trees. The procedure sounds simple enough, but burning crews try to apply just enough fire to burn the forest floor without cooking the trees — or making so much fire that they lose control. "We basically try to burn out the understory," McNeil said. Lighters have to weigh variables such as the amount of vegetation on the forest floor, steepness of slope, wind direction and time of day. Flames burn slower up gentle slopes, so lighters might apply more fire to a gentle grade than a steep hill. "The idea is to get some heat up the hill," said Chris Johnson, a fuels management specialist for the Bureau of Land Management’s Medford District. Safety is the lighters’ top priority. They stagger their progress across the slope — the lighter at the top of the hill starts first, and each in turn starts a little later, to make sure no one is engulfed by flames from below. They talk to each other as they walk across the hill to make sure the uphill lighters are always ahead of the downhill lighters. "The lead guy starts to light," said Mike Backen, a Boise Corp. forester. "How we space the other ones out depends on how hot we want it to burn. "You don’t want a lot of heat too fast because you can get (embers) spreading across the (fire) line." Things don’t always work according to plan. If the fire gets too hot, it can jump across the fire line, or cook living green trees. If the burn-out doesn’t make enough heat, it won’t consume all the fuel, creating the potential to burn again on its own, a "reburn." Burning typically happens when winds are light to help firefighters keep the flames under control. They may light in the dead of night or early in the morning. As the lighters work, other firefighters stand watch on the fire line looking for burning embers that might land on the green side of the containment line and start a spot fire. "When people see us standing around, they think we’re doing nothing," said Rob Wood of Klamath Falls, who watched for spots during a Wednesday burnout. "But we’re just watching and waiting." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [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 web master feedback A D V E R T I S E R S