30 Homes Evacuated Near Oregon Fire

About 30 homes were evacuated three miles south of Agness Thursday evening as flames from the Biscuit fire came within a mile of the neighborhood of Oak Flats.

“The fire hasn’t blown up,” said fire spokesman Dick Fleishman. “But it’s progressing that way, and the [Curry County] sheriff thought it would be safer to evacuate during the day than at night.”

National Guard troops were guarding the roads leading to the communities--Oak Flats and Spud Road--to keep residents from re-entering.

The evacuees, more than 60 people, were sent to Riley Creek School in Gold Beach, said Fleishman.

In other troublesome areas of the massive Biscuit fire, now burning on almost 400,000 acres, crews are making solid progress, fire officials said.

Wind-borne embers had been sparking small fires near Quail Prairie Mountain, on the southwestern flank of the fire near Brookings. But crews were able to do some burning-out in the area Thursday, fire information officer Mark Wilkening said, and were able to shore up lines built to stop the fire in its tracks.

Structural firefighters from around the state, summoned by Gov. John Kitzhaber in his record 10th use of the Emergency Conflagration Act this year, were headed to the Chetco River area, around the fire’s southwestern tip, to help evaluate fire danger to homeowners.

The Biscuit fire is now the largest recorded fire in Oregon history, burning primarily in the Siskiyou National Forest.

The fire has burned for a month since a lightning strike ignited it deep in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. With 6,848 people assembled from around the country, as well as Canada, New Zealand and Australia, the fire has cost $62.6 million to fight.

Five contract firefighters injured when the driver of their pickup apparently fell asleep and ran off U.S. Highway 199 near O’Brien had been sent home, Wilkening said.

The injured firefighters were part of a three-truck convoy driving from Salem to a fire camp in Brookings, state police Senior Trooper Randall Hoxsie said. They were treated and released from a local hospital.

It was the second time this summer members of a firefighting crew from Ferguson Management Co. of Albany were injured.

The Biscuit fire was 28% contained, with the most secure lines on the eastern and southern flanks. The threat to the 17,000 residents of the Illinois Valley diminished, but an evacuation notice remained in effect.

Elsewhere in Oregon, the East Antelope Fire grew in size to 1,550 acres and curled around the southeast slopes of Grizzly Peak. Flames could be seen 4 1/2 miles away in Ashland, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The fire was sparked Tuesday by power lines sagging into tree limbs.

“It doesn’t look like the fire will move toward the town of Ashland,” said Oregon Department of Forestry spokesman Dennis Turco.