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The Nugget Newspaper
Sisters, Oregon
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The contents of the on-line edition of The Nugget represent a selection among the stories that appear in the weekly print edition.

Escaped burn chars 190 acres
By Jim Cornelius

A prescribed burn north of Camp Sherman burst out of its control lines last week, consuming 190 acres before firefighters put a ring of fire lines around it over the weekend.

"The unit was burned Wednesday (October 9) and it slopped over out of the control area Thursday afternoon," said Lorri Heath of the Sisters Ranger District.

High winds on Thursday afternoon appear to be cause of the escape, though the exact details aren't clear.

"We don't know exactly if it was a snag that fell across the line or a spot fire," Heath said. "In about an hour it went from the flat to the top of Green Ridge with that wind that was behind it."

Two Hot Shot crews and eight hand crews fought the blaze with aid from a couple of water tenders. A total of 230 personnel were on the fire at its height.

A successful burnout operation to clear unburned fuel between containment lines and the main portion of the fire, was conducted on Sunday. According to Heath, the burnout was completed Monday afternoon, October 14.

The fire burned 2.5 miles north of Camp Sherman. No structures were threatened.

The prescribed burn was initially set to treat 20 acres in the Metolius Research Natural Area.

The Metolius RNA was established in 1934 to provide baseline areas to study natural processes. The Metolius Research Natural Area prescribed burn is part of a cooperative long-term fire return interval study with the Area IV Ecology Program and the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station (PNW).

"The purpose of the study is to develop a better understanding of the role of fire and ecosystem attributes and functions that may be affected by re-introducing fire in fire-dependent ecosystems," said Andy Youngblood, Research Scientist with the PNW Station in LaGrande. "This project focuses on Ponderosa pine stands in Central Oregon."

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