Incident: Cascade Creek Wildfire
Released: 1600 Hours – 9/28/2012
There will be a public meeting to provide an update on the wildfire status, outlook and management strategies at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday September 30, 2012. It will take place in the gymnasium at Jonah Ministries, 31 Mt Little Mountain Road, Trout Lake, WA. Everyone is welcome.
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Cattlemen and Firefighters work together to ensure cattle make it to winter range.
Trout Lake, Wash. When the Cascade Creek Wildfire ignited on September 8, cattle from the Kayser Cattle Company were still grazing on the 32,000-acre allotment Neil Kayser and his family use through a grazing permit with the United States Forest Service. Through coordination with the Mt. Adams Ranger District, Neil Kayser and his son Jess had to don protective fire gear and ride into the fire perimeter, driving 20 pair of cattle to safety. No cattle are known to have been lost. Over the past few weeks the Kayser cattle have continued to graze southeast of the fire. Now it is time to round up 500 animals and move them to their winter range.
The Kayser family has been doing this since the early 1900s and each year they look forward to this family affair. “It’s bred into us,” says Kayser, “the entire family helps out.” When asked the youngest age of this year’s helpers, Neil and Jess thought about it for a moment and replied, “Four years old, but we have a few between the ages of 7 and 10 that will be on horses.”
“Fire greatly affects peoples’ lives and we want to accommodate the local needs the best we can while still providing for everyone’s safety,” said Incident Commander Larry Nickey. “It is the time of year that cattle need to be moved from summer to winter range; we want to ensure this is possible while continuing to meet our incident objectives.”
The Kaysers are familiar with fire and its effects on the forest ecosystem. They are working closely with Washington Interagency Incident Management Team 4 to safely access their allotment where the cattle play an important role in forest health. “The cattle reduce light fuels through grazing and will eventually provide high quality beef to the consumer,” Kayser said.
Over the next two weeks, the Kayser family will bring the historic “Cow Camp” (pictured below) to life, driving and corralling cattle in a family tradition that is over 100 years old. It may look peaceful now, but in a few days this camp will be a booming operation while the Cascade Creek Wildfire continues to burn just a half mile to the north.
Historic “Cow Camp” before the round up begins – photo Cory Wall, USFS (go to photographs above and see Cow Camp photo)
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Incident: Cascade Creek Wildfire
Released: 0900 Hours – 9/28/2012
Retardant drops, helitac and ground crews suppress spot fires in northeast corner of Fire .
Firefighting focus is on Cascade Creek’s western perimeter where crews are strengthening ‘contingency’ fire line from FR 070 to FR 23.
Trout Lake, Wash., Yesterday, firefighters at the Cascade Creek Fire focused most of their work on widening and clearing fuels from the fire line constructed during the past three days along Forest Roads (FRs) 070, 101, 531, 511, 521 and 520. The continuous, 13-mile long fire line was tied into FR 23 yesterday, and hand crews began clearing snags, brushing, and removing ground fuels from the east side of the highway. FR 23 is a primary route between the towns of Trout Lake and Randall, Wash.
The fire line is serving as a contingency line that if necessary will be used to hold back the Fire should it burn downhill to the White Salmon River and further westward from its present location. The 15,565-acre fire is burning approximately two miles east of FR 23. It is 50 percent contained.
A great deal of progress was made to contain the fire along the entire eastern and southern boundaries this week and firefighters there have extinguished nearly all fire within 75 feet of the Fire’s perimeter from the Aiken Lava Bed to Cascade Creek. Several islands of unburned fuel were burned out late yesterday near FR 050.
A small spot fire burning in the northernmost section of the Lava Bed was observed yesterday afternoon. A four-person helitac crew was delivered to the site and retardant was dropped on the fire. Today, a 20-person hand crew will finish mopping it up.
Smoke continues to plague firefighters and local citizens as it is locked into valleys during the night and morning by cold-air inversions. Smoke is being monitored at a station (Station #22) in Trout Lake and the amounts of particulates are published daily for the area near the Fire http://tinyurl.com/9cuwpwp . Convert to local time by subtracting 8 hours from the time signatures on the website’s data and graphs.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed an Air Quality Index to provide easy to understand information on local air quality and whether air pollution levels pose a health concern. http://tinyurl.com/c76kk7t . Where smoke is particularly heavy, especially in the areas south of the Fire, everyone should avoid any outdoor exertion, and people with respiratory or heart disease, the elderly and children should remain indoors. Usually, the smoke has been dispersing by noon.
The fire burning north of Stagman Canyon area has burned from high-elevation stands of subalpine fir into mixed fir forest types where the trees are larger in size with fewer branches. There are also fewer large ground fuels in these stands. The change in fuel type along with calm winds is slowing the growth of the fire.
According to Dean Warner, fire behavior specialist, the fire is burning about an eighth of a mile per day as it backs downhill toward the White Salmon River. “Because of the sparse ground fuels, the fire isn’t building up enough heat to torch the crowns of the trees and create embers that can spread ahead of the fire,” he said. “The light winds aren’t carrying the fire very far, and the inversion is keeping humidity high at ground level,” he said.
Operations specialists are hoping the fire remains in a slow-growth pattern until the fire season-ending rain will stop the fire completely.
At most concern today for firefighters are the large numbers of hazardous shallow-rooted, decayed grand fir trees that are located in the unburned forest. Firefighters mopping up and completing rehabilitation activities in the area are paying special attention to the dangers overhead.
Several crews, equipment and aircraft are being demobilized from the fire as the firefighters come closer to accomplishing their mission of containing the fire. Truckloads of fire hose that once stretched for miles along the Aiken Lava Bed to the northeast corner of the fire were carried back to the Cascade Creek Fire Incident Command Post yesterday to be dried and rewound for storage.
Larry Nickey, incident commander for the Washington Interagency Incident Management Team, is impressed with the progress that has been made in the past three weeks. “I appreciate the hard, methodical work of the firefighters that has brought us very close to containing this fire,” Nickey said. “Everyone has done a good job safely carrying out the many daily tasks that will add up to containing this fire, and for that I am extremely thankful,” he said.
Fire Facts – Friday, September 28, 2012 – 0900 HOURS
Fire Size: 15,565 acres
Evacuations: None
Percent Contained: 50%
Fuels: Heavy, bug-killed timber, litter and understory
Expected Containment: Not determined
Air Resources: Two of each of the following: Light, medium and heavy helicopters; two air attack platforms
Firefighting Crews: 15
Engines: 18
Dozers: 4
Water Tenders: 14
Overhead: 139
Total Personnel: 557
Total Estimated Cost to Date: $10,073,986
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Pacific Crest Trail Closure in Effect as of September 20th at 1700 Hrs
Incident: Cascade Creek Wildfire
Released: 9/20/2012
Effective September 20th, 2012 at 1700 hours, the Pacific Crest Trail is closed from the Williams Mine Trailhead off Forest Road 23 to the junction of the Divide Trail #112 on the Mount Adams Ranger District of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The closure is due to increased fire activity on the Cascade Creek Fire.
REPOST
WA Dept. Natural Resources
NW Fire Blog 
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