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Quartz Fire slows; crews head elsewhere By GREG STILES The build-up of firefighters and equipment reversed Sunday as the Quartz Fire crews achieved 75 percent containment. The fire has charred 6,000 acres, mostly in the Rogue National Forest, north of Dutchman Peak and five miles east of Wagner Butte. By Sunday night, the ranks of firefighting personnel had dwindled to 1,700 from nearly 2,400 late last week. Several helicopters have deployed elsewhere as well. Oregon Department of Forestry spokesman Tom Berglund said that 10 crews from the 11-day-old, lightning-caused blaze have become available to battle expanding fires elsewhere in the West. One such fire is in the Imnaha fire in the Wallowas, near Enterprise. "We've had five Type 1 hotshot crews and five Bureau of Indian Affairs crews released," Berglund said. "One they start going, they go quickly. The estimated day of containment for the Quartz Fire is now Tuesday and the cost to battle the blaze has been estimated at $7.6 million. The remaining danger at this point are accidental injuries from firefighters letting their guards down. "We've gone this far with no injuries," Berglund said. "At this point, there's a little bit of letdown and the adrenaline is dropping. After a week of short sleep and extremely hard labor, fatigue sets in. There's a tendency toward preventable accidents." Snags, burning and otherwise, pose a particular threat at this point, as do holes covered with ash that could cause knee and ankle injuries. "We want to make sure we cut snags before crews come in," Berglund said. "But we don't try to cut down every snag by any means." Although there were no formal evacuations of the Dog Fork area of Yale Creek, Berglund reported that residents who fled on their own last week are now returning home. "I noticed there were several houses along Dog Fork that were being lived in (Sunday)," he said. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.