Eagle Complex Fire 2015

Last summer I worked as a seasonal employee for the Forest Service in Baker City, OR. I was a timber sale prep, but I regularly worked weekends with the fire crew. Last summer was a great summer for a seasonal employee as Oregon went up in big flames numerous times. We were surrounded by numerous large fires including the El Dorado, the Eagle Complex, the Grizzley Complex, the Canyon Creek Complex, Cornett-Windy Ridge, and others that I cannot recall the names of. Since I was primarily on the timber crew, that was my main objective, however, I did make it out to numerous less than one acre fires and the Eagle Complex.

The Eagle Complex started out as a single tree that got struck by lightening and the IA team had it under control, or so they thought. Later in the day temperatures rose and wind began to pick up. The terrain was very steep, and the source of the fire was about half way up the hillside. The fire quickly got out of control and climbed the mountainside in the blink of an eye. I did not reach the fire until the second day.

When I came upon the fire it had climbed the hill and started to descend into the adjacent canyon which was fairly large. In the morning there were ideas of sending a crew of us down below the fire into the canyon to dig line. This was obviously thrown aside very quickly due to the dangers of rolling material carrying fire below us and catching the fuels below us on fire. On our lunch break we sat atop the ridgeline and overlooked the canyon below. There were a few tree torchings on the same hillside as us up the canyon, but we were sitting in the black where the fire had already passed on the previous day. As we sat and watched, the wind began to pick up and carried embers to the adjacent hillside across the canyon and very quickly started three spot fires. By late afternoon we watched those three fires creep through one hour fuels and combine to create one large spot fire. These quickly found ladder fuels and began torching trees all the way up the hillside to the top. The images below show in order how the small ground fire made its way to the top of the ridge and started torching trees.

By day three the fire had found its way to the creek in the bottom of the canyon by way of rolling material. Below is a map of the Eagle Complex. You can see the spot fire off to the right with the creek separating the main fire from the spot fire. The rolling material reached the bottom, but the fire did not catch fuels on the opposite side on fire; only the same hillside. As this was going on, another fire to the west had been burning for the same amount of time and had jumped line numerous times due to the wind. The two fires soon joined together and became a complex. As you can see on the map, the Main Eagle Creek to the south was the only true line that was holding the fire. I was relieved from the fire on day 4 as it quickly turned in to a type 1 fire. The fire was finally contained in this rugged terrain at just under 13,000 acres. When I left the fire it was well under 5,000 acres. With the correct fuels, topography, and weather, there is no telling how fast fires will grow. This fire was a perfect example of how those three factors can influence a fire rapidly. My experience as a fire fighter is limited to two part time seasons, but I have learned a lot about fire behavior in that time.