Flurry of Fires Briefly Closes Caves Highway

A series of five small wildfires in southern Josephine County this afternoon kept engine crews hopping. The fires were reported at 2:48 p.m. and were located between the 3100 and 3200 blocks of Caves Highway. The fires ranged in size from ¼ acre to 5 acres. At one point, the largest of the fires crossed the highway twice, necessitating a brief closure of the road.

All of the fires now have firelines around them and are in the mop-up stage.

Four engines and a dozer from ODF’s Grants Pass Unit responded to the fires, along with engines from the U.S. Forest Service, Illinois Valley Fire District, Rural Metro Fire Department and Grants Pass Dept. of Public Safety. A structural protection task force was put on alert, but was not mobilized.

The fires, pushed by wind gusts up to 15 mph, burned primarily in grass and threatened barns and other structures.

A sixth fire in the same general area, S. Kerby Ave., was reported at 2:23 p.m. and burned ½ acre.

The cause of the fires is under investigation.

OEM Reaches Out By Blogging, Twittering

Oregon Emergency Management (OEM) has begun using new media resources that are available online to get important messages out to the public.

OEM is the state agency responsible for coordinating and facilitating emergency planning, preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery activities.

During an emergency such as flood, earthquake, snowstorm, etc., OEM provides important messages to the public by working with various types of media. Between disasters, OEM’s messages focus on individual preparedness and responsibility.

“Newspaper, radio and television have always been the best way to pass on information during and after a disaster,” said Jennifer Bailey, OEM Public Affairs Coordinator. “The support or this type of media has no doubt assisted OEM in saving lives and helping people to be prepared and will continue to do so.”

Even so, to keep up with the changing times, OEM has created a blog and a Twitter account for those who prefer to get their news in a different way. OEM believes that in order to reach the majority of Oregonians, they must use every means at their disposal.

Currently the blog and Twitter are posting preparedness information and other items of interest. During a disaster, emergency information and updates will be posted regularly.

“We invite anyone who uses this type of media to join us,” Bailey said. “The use of this almost instantaneous form of communicating should be a big help in getting important messages out.”

Lookouts Take Their Posts

All six of the Southwest Oregon District's mountaintop fire lookout towers are in service for the summer. The lookouts are located on Little Grayback, Onion Peak and Sexton mountain (see photo) in Josephine County; and Round Top, Soda Mountain and White Point in Jackson County.

The people staffing the lookouts typically spot at least 20 fires every summer.

The person in the tower, who is sometimes called a firewatcher, needs a good pair of eyeballs, a powerful pair of binoculars, and a thorough knowledge of the area around the tower -- the name of every creek drainage, mountaintop, gully and gulch within visible range.

A smoke that is spotted is plotted on a map, and the location is transmitted to the fire dispatch office by radio. Locations are relayed as legal descriptions: township, range, section, second quarter section, first quarter section.

An esstential instrument used by the firewatcher is an Osborne Firefinder, a round, tabletop device which has a map in the middle and a 360-degree bezel around the edge. Using this instrument, the firewatcher determines the azimuth direction to the smoke, and relays this azimuth to the dispatch office. If the same smoke is spotted by two other fire lookouts, the dispatchers can determine a very accurate location for the smoke using triangulation.

Fire lookouts have been in continuous use in Oregon since 1907.