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Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityheralchcom
August 17, 2015
>N >H>s aD>i'>oN: L ocal • Home @Living • Sports Monday $
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lightningFiresHaveBurned SeveralThousandAcres
QUICIC HITS
Good Day Wish To A Subscriber
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A special good day to Herald subscriber Angela Crawford of Baker City.
• Landowners in forested Stices Gulch view the aftermath of fires that destroyed outbuildings and three homes BRIEFING
A. Lakes Hwy. repairs postponed The Forest Service has postponed its plan to repair a sinkhole on the Anthony Lakes Highway. The work was slated for Aug. 17-20. It was canceleddue to the major fires burning across the area, although none of those is affecting the Anthony Lakes area. The work will be rescheduled. The highway remains open.
Boil water order issued for Unity Baker County has issued a boil water notice for the city of Unity until further notice. A water test was positive for E.Coli bacteria, according to Oregon Health Authority officials.
Poster-making class added at Crossroads A class called "DoDoodle-Did Back to School Poster Making" has been added to the schedule at Crossroads Carnegie Art Center. It will be held Aug. 26 and 27. Class times are 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. for ages 5-6 and noon to 1:30 p.m. for ages 7-11. The instructor is M. Lynnie Johnson, children's book author, illustrator and family consultant. Cost is $40 for Crossroads members or $60 for nonmembers, and includes poster and all materials involved except for one child photo, which students need to bring. The class is described as "a poster making class that provides each child participant an 'all about them' experience with you by their side ... doing ... doodling and chatting all the while. In this art-filled posterm aking event,kidscan share real life stories in their very own words about every single fun thing they love to do." For more information, or to register, call Crossroads at 541-5235369.
WEATHER
Today
85/40 Clear
Tuesday
85/42
By La'akea Kaufman kkaufman©bakercltyherald.com
Before you make the left turn from Baker City on Highway 7 toward Stices Gulch, you see it. Waves of black splashed across the hillside that, with the absence of smoke, look more like strange patterns in a haphazard art project than a natural disaster. But the smoldering tree stumps and hot spots littered about the side of Highway 245 toward the Gulch give way to the severity of the situation. The narrow gully is in a ponderosapine forestjust west of the Dooley Mountain Highway about 12 miles south of Baker City. On Tuesday afternoon, residentsinthe area received a Level 1, or "get ready", evacuation notice. They were the first neighborhood in Baker County to receive such notice in response to the Cornet-Windy Ridge Complex Fire. By Wednesday, Stices Gulch was at Level 3, or "leave now" evacuation notice. By Sunday, three Stices Gulch homes and fourWindy Ridge homes had been lost to the fire, at least one of the Stices Gulch homes was not a primary residence.
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Kathy Orr/Baker City herald
A bomb squad responded to defuse dynamite found by one of the homeowners' children. The small crater was left by the explosives and shrapnel was blown 100 feet, some landing in nearby trees. Most property owners in Stices Gulch lost their outbuildings, including barns and sheds. As of this morning, the currentsize ofthe blazeis 96,762 acres, with 30-percent containment, according to fire officials. Cassandra Ulven, public
information officer and one of two fire chiefs on the State fire team escorting media to view the Stices Gulch damage on Sunday morning, says if it hadn't been for the immediate action taken at Level 1 warning, many of the remaining 14 homes in Stices Gulch would not be
standing today. ''When this first started, it was the local firefighters, the volunteers at Greater Bowen Valley that were out there doing everything that they couldtoprepare structures and figure out what could be saved," Ulven said."And as the fire got closer, they were
out there on the front lines tryingtoprotectstructures." Residents, too, deserve credit for their efforts in maintaining their lawns and trees, limiting any fuel the fire would have been eager to gobble up, Ulven said. See Stices/Page 8A
Firec ef's omein Stices Guj.c is save day night after dark. "It was shocking," she said of the Penny Devlin said she went from devastation left behind in the wake of the fire."I was glad I got to ease into devastatedto elated in thecourse of it a little bit." about four hours Wednesday night. They went back Sunday afternoon She was devastated when her husband, Jim, called her at her brother's where they were greeted by their one Washington home to tell her there cat, Lonny, who they feared had been was little hope that their Stices Gulch lost in the fire. home had survived the inferno that Penny posted a picture of the hapburned through the area last week. py cat with Jim on Facebook Sunday Jim Devlin, 47, is fire chief of the afternoon, adding that she had been Greater Bowen Valley Fire District. able to hold back tears until Lonny Penny, 46, said she was later elated came running up to greet them. The couple are staying at a Baker when, at about 11 p.m., Jim called City motel for a short time and then back to say that while they lost their outbuildings, their home had will move to a vacant rental house survived. a fiiend has offered them until they Penny returned with her husband can return to their home, Penny said. to their home for the first time SaturSeeDevlin/Page 8A By Chris Collins
ccolllns©bakercltyherald.com
Kathy OrrI Baker City herald
Fire Chief Jim Devlin's property was one of many where the houses were saved but other structures and vehicles were lost to the fire. Devlin lost his shop and numerous tractors and trucks. Many property owners took preventative measures before evacuating, which officials say saved their homes.
Residentshearuydateadoutareawildfires By Joshua Dillen ]dlllen©bakercltyherald.com
At Saturday night's public meeting about the Windy Ridge and Cornet fires, a fire official said firefighters made good progress battling the two blazes that have grown together in the last 25 hours. The meeting began at 6 p.m. at the Nazarene Church, which was filled almost to capacity.
Operations Section Chief Todd Abell for the Southwest Interagency Incident Management Team said today was "a very good day." He explained lower temperatures and other favorable weather conditions helped fire crews make good progress fighting the estimated 30,000-acre wildfire south of Baker City. He said good progress has been achieved on the southwest and
west sides of the fire. Abell said the fire jumped the freeway Sunday, but was contained. "We were able to get ihelicopters) into the air and immediately pick up that slop that went over thehighway," he said. Some of thelocalfolks were able to get on a dozer and start punching some line around that." Abellsaid parts of the south
end of the fire have areas that are "black and cold." After the meeting, he said favorableweather conditions should allow fire crews to improve the current 10 percent containment of the fire. iAccording to current information from the Oregon Department of Forestry, the fire is 30 percent contained today.) See Meeting/Page 8A
Sunny Full forecast on the baCk Of the B SeCtiOn.
T ODAY Issue 43, 16 pages
Calendar....................2A Classified............. 4B-7B Comics.......................3B
C o m m u nity News ....3A Ho m e ................... 1B2B Ne w s of Record........2A Se n i or menus ...........2A C r o ssword........... 5B-6B H o r o scope........... 5B-6B O b i t uaries...................2A S p o r ts..................5A-6A De a r Abby.................SB L o t t ery.........................2A O p i n ion......................4A We a t her.....................SB
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