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Local firefighters help elsewhere By Bill Kettler As Southern Oregon enters the peak wildfire season, scores of local firefighters have been working on fires across the West. Two 20-person crews were expected to return home within the next few days from fires in Idaho and Northern California. At least 80 other local men and women are working administrative and management jobs at large "project fires" where tent cities spring up to feed and shelter hundreds of firefighters. Closer to home, two 20-person crews were working Monday to mop up a 4-acre fire that erupted at Fish Lake on Saturday. Lightning strikes started the fire two or three weeks ago, and hot, dry weather during the past few days brought the flames to life, said Gary Fichtner,a Bureau of Land Management dispatcher. Fichtner said it�s not unusual for a lightning fire to smolder for weeks in damp forest soil and take off in hot, windy weather. As of Monday afternoon, no local firefighters had been sent to the 60,000-acre Manter Fire, in the Sequoia National Forest, northeast of Kernville, Calif. "That may change," said Phil Cardin, dispatcher for the Rogue River National Forest. Staff reductions in the Forest Service and BLM in recent years have changed the way local fire crews are assembled. Each forest or ranger district used to assemble its own 20-person crew, but no more. Now many "interagency" crews include firefighters from various forests and BLM districts. While many federal employees have been dispatched to far-flung fires, firefighters from the Oregon Department of Forestry are staying close to home. "Normally this time of year, when the fire danger gets high, we try to keep our resource here," said Dennis Turco of the Oregon Department of Forestry. Two 10-person crews, 22 fire engines and two bulldozers are available for fires in Jackson and Josephine counties, he said. Despite recent hot weather, Southern Oregon has had fewer fires than the average for this date in the fire season. Turco said as of Monday, 91 fires had burned a total of 89 acres; 74 fires were human-caused and 17 were started by lightning. The 10-year average for late July is 129 fires and 340 acres. "The public�s doing an outstanding job preventing fires," he said, while urging people to be especially careful now that August heat has arrived. He said the fire potential has climbed close to what it was in 1994, when the last big fire in Southern Oregon burned thousands of acres in Sams Valley and killed one firefighter. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA