The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Smoke choked the air in and around Sisters last weekend as a 590-acre lightning-caused blaze flared up in the wilderness near Park Meadow 13 miles south of town.

Three firefighting crews and a helicopter were at work Monday morning laying hose line and building a lane around the fire. They were preparing for the arrival of 500 troops from a Fort Carson, Colorado military team which deployed periodically throughout Monday, August 26, from Redding, California, where they had been battling forest fires.

The Park Meadow blaze was ignited by a lightning strike Friday night, August 23. A team of six smoke jumpers parachuted into the Three Sisters Wilderness in

the shadow of the Middle Sister at about 6 a.m. the next morning, backed up by a six-person ground crew from the Sisters Ranger District.

The fire, which covered about two acres when the smoke jumpers went in, quickly got out of hand, outstripping the efforts of the small crew fighting the blaze. They were airlifted out of the area by mid-morning.

"It started to torch on us," one of the smoke jumpers reported late Saturday afternoon, "and we were running over here to the torching spot and running over there to the torching spot. Pretty soon it was torching faster than we could get to it.

"There was nothing we were going to do," he said. "The meadow we were in was run over as we were being helicoptered out of it."

"There was a red wall behind us," another confirmed.

More firefighters were not available Saturday to attack the Park Meadow blaze, which flared up at a time when firefighting resources in the area were stretched perilously thin by a series of lightning-caused fires. The worst of those fires, the Skeleton fire southeast of Bend consumed 19 homes before winds shifted and pushed the15,000 acre blaze onto uninhabited land.

"Resources are extremely stretched with all the fires everywhere," Forest Service Information Officer Barbara Kennedy said. "There's a group of folks at the Northwest Coordinating Center in Portland having to make some very difficult decisions about priorities on fires."

Kennedy said Monday that the Park Meadow fire is not threatening any homes or structures. There is a concern that the blaze will reach Pole Creek, affecting Sisters' water supply. As of Monday, the fire was still to the west side of Squaw Creek and to the south of Fall Creek, but was creeping east.

Officials evacuated two campgrounds and the horse camp by Three Creeks Lake on Saturday. Access Road 16 to Three Creeks was closed, as well as Roads 1514 and 15 at the 1525 junction. Trailheads at Pole Creek, Squaw Creek Falls, Park Meadow, Tam McArthur, Trapper Meadow, and Little Three Creeks were all closed as of Monday.

Kennedy said that any ashfall in Sisters to date has been cold ash and is not a threat to spark new fires. Hot ash spotting had occurred about a half-mile in front of the Park Meadow fire, but it was too far from Sisters to pose a threat.

As of Monday there was not an estimated time for containment, Kennedy said. Firefighters are building fire lines on the east and southeast perimeter of the blaze to stop its spreading.

Dead sub-alpine fir and lodgepole pine trees contributed to the fire's extreme behavior, Kennedy said. But open meadows and better weather conditions slowed the blaze by Monday. Cloud cover, higher humidity and smoke kept the fire relatively quiet on Sunday, Kennedy said. This allowed crews to get equipment in and build a bit of fire line on the east side by Monday.

Kennedy also said thunder showers forecasted for the area Monday night were a promising sign, but they also pose problem for firefighters.

"It's a good news/bad news thing," Kennedy said. "If it brings rain, that's good. But thunder cells frequently bring squirrelly winds, and that's always a problem on a fire."

"The good thing about this fire is that it's a long way from any homes or private property at this point," Kennedy said.