Fire at the Last Chance Opal Mine today (PICS)

[DemoTex]

I spotted the smoke on the lower eastern aspect of Sixteen Butte - 6.125 miles from my lookout tower - at about 12:45 today. The wispy white smoke billowed up quickly as the fire grew in size, creeping through light fuels. By the time the first fire crew arrived - about 30 minutes later - the fire was sized at 1/2 acre.

The wind picked up speed, and the fire was soon spotting (with trees torching) and grew to about three acres. We ended up with four fire engines, a water tender, a hand crew, a fuels unit, and a USFS law enforcement unit on the fire. Arson is suspected. Evidently the mine, which has operated the last three years, is now defunct.

It is totally dark now. The last engines just left the fire for quarters in Bend, the fire contained-controlled-mopped and bedded down for the night.
All in all, a gratifying day. I was able to nail the fire position at the opal mine, which meant the crews wasted no time looking for the fire.


At 1 PM PDT the fire was about 1/2 acre


At 2 PM PDT the fire was estimated to be at three acres and growing with spotting and individual tree torching (visible here)

[Skittles]

1. wow

so cool!!!!

[dionysus]

2. awesome pics as usual Tex

[Warpy]

3. Good work!

I keep wondering if we'll get to monsoon season without having the whole state burn down this year. The latest fire was about five miles southwest of me, but since it's close to the city, was contained in about 6 hours. I barely had a chance to grumble about more damn smoke and it was out.

I wish there was a way to keep morons out of dry forests. I wish there was a way to keep 'em from voting, too. Since that's asking too much, we have rangers in fire towers. No clue what we can do about voting.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear DemoTex!

I don't even want to think how bad that fire could have gotten if you hadn't been there to see it right away...

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Great job!

All we need is another out-of-control fire. So glad that this one was stopped in its tracks. Thanks so much for sharing this with us and, as usual, spectacular photos!

[Stephanie69]

6. Spam deleted by tjwmason (MIR Team)

[ErikJ]

7. Good job-but shouldnt you ever let the fires burn

to get rid of decades old forest litter and tree beetles? Or is the forest too dry for that right now?

[DemoTex]

8. Sometimes, yes .. but this was almost on top of last October's Rx burn

Plus, it was not arson. But it was still human-caused. Some fellow showed up and admitted to crapping in the woods and BURNING his toilet paper. Stupid! Dig a cat-hole and bury the paper .. PLEASE! Human-caused fires are almost always attacked.