08/05/2002

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer

About 120 Canadian hotshot firefighters and two dozen managers are enroute to reinforce firefighters working in Southern Oregon.

The Canadians arrived over the weekend for an orientation briefing at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, and shipped out yesterday to help work on the huge Florence fire west of Grants Pass.

The Florence fire is the largest in the West, and about 24-hundred firefighters are on the fire; the fire is ten percent contained.

With weather feeling more like fall than summer, firefighters had difficulty Monday setting the final fires to strengthen the defense line for the 17,000 residents of the Illinois Valley against the Florence and Sour Biscuit fires.

Slowed by high humidity and low temperatures, particularly at night, crews with drip torches and flare guns hoped Monday to finish burning out the last eight miles of their 40-mile front against the eastern flank of the two fires that have grown to 284,000 acres on the Siskiyou National Forest.

"If we get a little less humidity -- this is weird to say on a fire -- we'll be able to get those burnouts completed today," said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Gil Knight.

Smoke and flames from a burn out made by the Rogue River Hot Shot crew billow up from a creek bed. (AP Photo)

With the threat to the southwestern Oregon communities of O'Brien, Cave Junction, Kerby and Selma diminishing with each mile of fire-hardened containment line completed, the battle built on the western and northern flanks, where the fire continues to pose a major threat.

The northern flank is still creeping toward the community of Agness, a whitewater rafting center on the Rogue River, but there were no pre-evacuation warnings, Knight said. The Bear Camp road, used by whitewater rafters between Agness and Galice, was closed for preparation as a potential containment line.

Many of the nearly 17,000 residents of the Illinois Valley, whose homes were jeopardized by the Florence and Sour Biscuit fires, remained on watch.

Fire and smoke filters through trees from a burnout as an unidentified firefighter heads down a rock covered river bed while helping crews battle the Florence fire near O'Brien, Ore. (AP Photo)

The Wood family has been cutting trees and clearing brush around the ranch for five days and had a sprinkler on the roof, said Susie Wood.

"They said they felt that with the efforts we've been doing, they think we can save our place," she said. "I hope so -- you've got to have a positive attitude."

On the far ridge, crews used explosives to carve out a one- to two-mile containment line for the next day's burnout through rocky terrain. Tubes of sausage-shaped explosives were laid down and then detonated from a distance, creating a huge explosion that sent clouds of gray smoke above the tree line.

Flames from a burnout engulf a tree and spew smoke skyward as crews battle the Florence Fire near O'Brien, Ore. (AP Photo)

The 240,000-acre Florence Fire was still about one to two miles from the 44,000-acre Biscuit Fire and fire officials expect the two blazes to merge in the next few days.

"We expect them to and it's OK if they do," said Mike Ferris, Forest Service spokesman. "We've been treating them like one fire already."

The threat to the Illinois Valley has dropped because of progress with burnouts and the cooler weather, said Ferris. A 30-minute evacuation order was downgraded to a two-hour warning Saturday night, he said. That could be lowered to a 24- or 48-hour notice in the next few days.

"We're feeling pretty good about the reduced threat in these communities. It's starting to look like they have a minimal risk to them," Ferris said.

An unidentified firefighter pauses on the steep hillside while setting a burnout while crews battle the Florence fire near O'Brien, Ore. (AP Photo)

The fire crossed Indigo Creek to the north and was about three miles from Agness Sunday. Crews planned to link line from the west and east sides in the next few weeks.

About $10.1 million has been spent on the Florence fire alone, said Forest Service spokesman Tom Knappenberger.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)