News

Firefighting in the Era of Megafires

Firefighters have drawn containment lines for 20% of the Cedar Creek Fire, and indirect lines for as much as half of it. How it’s fought and how it grew looks different than it did just 10 years ago.

By Jack Harvel

The Cedar Creek Fire was just one of up to 30 spotted after a lightning storm crossed the Cascades on Aug. 1. Rappelers went out in helicopters the next day to respond, but couldn’t find a safe access point to the then-5-acre fire. Helicopters dropped water on the fire most of Tuesday, but by Wednesday it’d grown to an estimated 100 acres.

Nearly two months later the fire is over 114,000 acres, and burning in inaccessible areas not conducive to building line support, using dozers and other direct firefighting techniques—so firefighters are using an “indirect” firefighting strategy. One thing the Cascade Crest is conducive to is wildfires; good soil, plenty of moisture and moss that spreads fires up trees and makes it easier to spread. An indirect strategy identifies areas around the fire where firefighters can make a stand.

“That can be 100 feet, that could be 15 miles based on what you have available as options,” said Northwest Incident Management Team Operations Section Chief Chris Orr. “With the tremendous fire behavior that was coming out of this, you could not be close to it in a direct strategy; you come out to some distance where you’re much more likely to be successful by making a stand there. We look at areas with breaks in fuel, changes in typography in our favor and existing barriers that we could improve upon to be successful.”

The barriers can be roads, rivers or areas with more spread-out trees and foliage. On the Cedar Creek Fire, crews have about 20% of containment lines drawn, but the lines don’t connect all the way around—plus, containment lines don’t consider the indirect lines fire crews are working on now. Orr said they’ve dug about half of the indirect containment lines needed to isolate the fire.

He cites fuel accumulation from fighting other fires, and the resultant larger fires as reasons for the change in approach, with a lesser focus on “containment.”

“Years ago, when we were able to have smaller fires that we could get around, containment made more sense. The last six, seven years in the era of mega fires with the drought in the West, the fuel accumulations, the lack of resources, we’re not going direct on every fire anymore. So, containment is not the term that best fits it,” Orr said.

Firefighting strategies changed over the past decades as fires have spread faster, all while the wildland firefighting workforce shrank. In June about 20% of Oregon’s federal firefighter workforce positions were vacant.

A changing view of fire’s place in an ecosystem has also impacted how firefighting has changed. Fire is so built into the ecosystem that plants like the Lodgepole pine’s cones must be exposed to high heat before they can release seeds. While firefighters 10 or more years ago may have rushed to extinguish a fire as quickly as possible, now they account for long-term impacts on the landscape.

“I keep going back to those same areas where we caught it small, and now it’s just burning all around it under worse conditions,” Orr said. “If we can have the conditions where we can allow fire to do its thing to

reduce the fuel loading, buffer it for the next year and the next 30 years to come, we’re all in a better spot.”

The firefighters are working on an eastern and western front on the Cedar Creek Fire. In the east, the Northwest Incident Management Team 7 is working on reducing fuel along the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway, Charlton Lake Road and several forest service roads. In the west Northwest Incident Management Team 9 is “firing operations” to eliminate fuels and bring the fire closer to existing containment lines. The fire is about 15 miles east of Oakridge, which at one point evacuated the whole town. Now parts of the Deschutes and Willamette National Forests are subject to closure orders.

Smoke from the fire drifted into Central Oregon but has more often traveled northward. From there it can travel across the globe as it latches onto the jetstreams in the upper atmosphere.

“Some of our fires have gotten smoke on the East Coast. I have family in Michigan that has complained to me, ‘We’ve got your smoke,’” said Alan Hageman, NWIMT7’s public information officer. “If you’re healthy, it’s annoying. If you’re not healthy it can be a game changer.”

Once the fire is contained and even once it’s burned itself out there’s still work to be done. Wildfires leave hazardous burned-out trees in their wake that look healthy but can fall shortly after a fire ends.

“There will be hazards from this fire, there will be, and those have to be identified and mitigated or removed before that access is there,” Hageman said.

As fires get bigger and faster, Orr and Hageman said people need to become more adjusted to life in an ecosystem prone to fire. Evacuation orders may be issued even if a fire is over 10 miles away. Smoke isn’t going to go away. And people will have to become responsible for their own property.

“I used to work in Yosemite, and in California defensible space for a lot of people is like second nature. And then when I came to Oregon, it seems like not everybody’s got the memo,” Hageman said.

Defensible space can involve whole remodels like replacing shake shingle roofs, using cement siding and decks and installing fire-resistant ventilation. It could also involve how a property is taken care of, including things like clearing wood from under decks, keeping firewood more than 30 feet away and not having trees and foliage near a house.

"If we can have the conditions where we can allow fire to do its thing to reduce the fuel loading, buffer it for the next year and the next 30 years to come, we’re all in a better spot.”

—CHRIS ORR

Jack Harvel Courtesy of the National Incident Management Team

Lowered Standards

Oregon standardized test scores dropped by 9%, and Central Oregon wasn’t immune to COVID learning loss

By Jack Harvel

Standardized test scores are down by 9% in Oregon, and both Bend-La Pine Schools and the Redmond School District trended down in all three subjects. The 2021-22 school year was the first time students have taken standardized tests since the 2018-19 school year, after the pandemic disrupted education.

Though test scores were down in BLPS they fared better than the state’s average decline in all subjects except science. In English 56% of BLPS students received passing grades compared to 60.7% in ‘18-19, a 44.9% pass rate in math compared to 49.4% and a 33.4% pass rate compared to 43%. "While we avoided steep declines seen in some districts across the nation, we did experience an overall dip," said Dave VanLoo, director of school improvement at BLPS. "Likely these results are connected to the disrupted learning that students experienced during the pandemic, which included a variety of increased stressors both in and outside of school for families." Redmond similarly saw scores drop to 45.5% passing from 52.8% in English, 32.8% from 42.9% in math and 30.9% from 34.5% in science.

“What we attribute that to mostly is the pandemic. So that lost learning that happened in the pandemic, things like attendance issues from having to quarantine, the challenges of online learning, that’s what we think caused it,” said Holly Brown, public information officer for the Redmond School District. “Now that we’re back in school we are hoping that we can have better attendance and that face-to-face education.”

As standardized tests return from a COVID-caused hiatus, schools are starting to see the impact the pandemic had on student success. Nationally, reading scores declined more than they have in 30 years and math, decreasing for the first time since the National Center for Education Statistics started tracking scores. Averages scores fell 7% in math and 5% in reading for 9-year-old students.

“These are some of the largest declines we have observed in a single assessment cycle in 50 years of the NAEP program," Daniel McGrath, the acting associate commissioner of NCES, told National Public Radio. “Students in 2022 are performing at a level last seen two decades ago.”

All demographic groups saw scores slip nationally, but students of color and those attending less-affluent schools saw more dramatic drops. Participation in Oregon’s standardized tests also dropped. In BLPS about 83.8% of students tested in reading in the ‘21-22 school year compared to 88.2% during the last round of testing and 81.5% in math, compared to 86.1%.

Redmond saw an even greater drop, testing more than 10% fewer students than it did in the '18-'19 school year. Less than 70% of Redmond students took a standardized test in any of the three subjects.

“We wish that more people would participate, because the scores are meant to be a measurement standard. And if we’re not getting a great participation rate, then we can’t really properly assess that data,” Brown said.

Those numbers are critical for administrators to allocate resources. The data breaks down demographic groups and whether they participate in certain school programs like English-language learning students and Special Ed students.

“Every year that the testing data comes out, we take a look and see in what areas what student focus groups that we might need to allocate some more resources to and try to improve those numbers,” Brown said. “We’re just hoping that more students will participate in the testing so that we can assess our programs, and really give the best education and devote the right assets where they need to be devoted to the school district.”

During the pandemic, Oregon was slower to return to in-person learning compared to other states, and though enrollment isn’t back at its pre-COVID peak in BLPS and RSD, students are slowly re-entering the public school system. BLPS enrollment is pretty much the same as last year, but its online program has a total population of 180 students—about 70 fewer students than the district anticipated. In Redmond there are about 50 more students than last year, which may not indicate people returning to traditional schooling rather than standard growth from Redmond’s rising population.

“This school year, it looks like we had a standard increase. There wasn’t anything super surprising. But we are still under our pre COVID numbers by a little over 300 students,” Brown said.

Courtesy of the Brookings Institute

The Brookings Institute tracked student achievement, showing a sharp decline in math scores at the start of the pandemic.

“Every year that the testing data comes out, we take a look and see in what areas what student focus groups that we might need to allocate some more resources to and try to improve those numbers.”

—HOLLY BROWN

SEPTEMBER 30

The Summer Shutdown

OCTOBER 1

The Every Day Magic of Potions: A Cooking Show w/Chef Vanna

OCTOBER 6-9

2022 Bend Film Festival

NEWS La lucha contra incendios en la era de fuertes incendios

Por / By Jack Harvel Translated by / Traducido por Jéssica Sánchez-Millar

El incendio forestal de Cedar Creek fue solo uno de los 30 que se detectaron después de la tormenta de rayos a lo largo de Cascades el 1 de agosto. Personas descendieron en rapel del helicóptero al día siguiente para responder al incendio pero no pudieron encontrar un punto de acceso seguro al incendio, en aquel entonces, de 5 acres. Los helicópteros arrojaron agua sobre el fuego la mayor parte del martes, pero para el miércoles se había extendido a unas 100 hectáreas.

Casi dos meses después, el incendio se encuentra cerca de las 114,000 hectáreas y arde en zonas inaccesibles que no son propicias para el apoyo de líneas de contención, de escabadoras y de otras técnicas directas de extinción de incendios, por lo que los bomberos están usando una estrategia “indirecta” para extinguir incendios. Una cosa en la que Cascade Crest es propicia es a los incendios forestales; hay buen terreno, mucha humedad y musgo que se esparce los incendios en los árboles y hace que se propague más fácilmente. Una estrategia indirecta identifica las zonas alrededor del incendio en dónde los bomberos pueden resistir al incendio.

“Puede ser 100 pies, eso podría ser 15 millas basado en lo que tenga uno disponible como alternativa,” dijo Chris Orr, Jefe del Equipo del Departamento de Operaciones del Equipo de Gestión de Incidentes del Noroeste. “Con el comportamiento tan impresionante del fuego que estaba surgiendo, no podías estar cerca de él durante una estrategia directa; tienes que llegar a una cierta distancia en donde es mucho más probable que tengas éxito si te situas allí. Buscamos zonas con fugas de combustible, cambios en la tipografía a nuestro favor y barreras existentes que podríamos mejorar para tener éxito.”

Las barreras pueden ser los caminos, los ríos o las zonas con árboles y follaje más dispersos. En el incendio de Cedar Creek, las cuadrillas tienen marcadas cerca del 20% de líneas de contención, pero las líneas no se conectan completamente, además, las líneas de contención no tienen en cuenta las líneas indirectas en las que las cuadrillas de bomberos están trabajando ahora. Orr dijo que aproximadamente la mitad de las líneas de conteción indirecta estaban establecidas.

Cita la acumulación del combustible al combatir otros incendios y los incendios más extensos resultants, como las razones para el cambio de enfoque, con un menor enfoque en la “contención”.

“Hace años, cuando podíamos tener incendios más pequeños que podíamos enfrentar, el uso de la contención tenía más sentido. Los últimos seis, siete años en la zona de los megaincendios, con la sequía en el oeste, las acumulaciones de combustible, la falta de recursos, ya no vamos a dirigir directamente a cada incendio. Así que la contención no es el mejor de los terminos,” comentó Orr.

Las estrategias para combatir incendios cambiaron en las últimas décadas a medida que los incendios se propagan más rápidamente, todo mientras que la fuerza laboral para combatir los incendios se reduce. En junio, cerca del 20% de los puestos de trabajo de bomberos federales de Oregon estaban vacantes (about 20% of Oregon’s federal firefighter workforce positions were vacant.)

Una vez que esté contenido el incendio e incluso una vez que se haya extinguido, aún queda mucho trabajo por hacer. Los incendios forestales dejan a su paso peligro como lo son los árboles quemados que se ven saludables pero que pueden caerse poco después de que se apague el fuego. “Habrá peligro debido a este incendio, lo habrá, y deberán ser identificados y mitigados o eliminados antes que haya acceso” comentó Hageman.

A medida que los incendios son más grandes y más rápidos, las autoridades dijeron que las personas necesitan adaptarse más a la vida en un ecosistema propenso a los incendios. Se pueden emitir órdenes de evacuación incluso si el incendio se encuentra a más de 10 millas de distancia. El humo no va a desaparecer. Y las personas tendrán que responsabilizarse de sus propios bienes.

Un espacio defendible puede involucrar una remodelación total, cómo reemplazar los techos de tejas, usar revestimiento y terrazas de cemento e instalar ventilación resistente al fuego. También podría incluir cómo cuidar una propiedad, incluyendo cosas como quitar la madera que hay debajo de las terrazas, guardar la leña a más de 30 pies de distancia de la casa y no tener árboles o follaje cerca de la casa.

Now Open with More Taps and a Great New Menu