Fire on Malheur forest grows rapidly

Published 10:04 am Friday, August 26, 2022

Baker County hasn’t had much in the way of wildfires over the past week but on Thursday evening, Aug. 25, the county got some smoke.

A plume from a lightning-sparked fire more than 30 miles away in Grant County, near the Middle Fork John Day River, partially blotted the sun as it sank below the Elkhorn Mountains.

The Crockets Knob fire in the Greenhorn Mountains grew from about 225 acres on Thursday morning to an estimated 1,000 acres by 7 p.m. that day, said Courtney Wood, a public information officer at the fire camp.

The fire was spurred by gusty west and north winds, Wood said.

Although the blaze grew substantially, Wood said fire behavior was moderate rather than extreme. That’s mainly because the fire is burning not in a mature forest but in an area that was scorched by the Summit fire in 1996.

That blaze killed most of the mature trees, and in the ensuing quarter century a dense forest of young lodgepole pine has colonized the area, interspersed with clumps of snowbrush up to 10 feet tall, Wood said.

The snowbrush, which can be all but impenetrable, has made it difficult for firefighters to reach parts of the blaze, Wood said.

Crews on the ground have been helped, though, by a variety of aerial resources, including a pair of heavy air tankers that dropped retardant Thursday along the fire’s south flank, where the blaze was spreading, Wood said.

The fire is in a remote area and is not threatening any structures, Wood said.

A larger incident command team has been ordered to take over from the current team, she said.

The Forest Service has instituted an area closure due to the fire which includes about 5,100 acres, as well as sections of several roads and trails. A map and other details are available at www.fs.usda.gov/malheur.