Trapper Creek fire

General discussions on hiking in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest
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squidvicious
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Trapper Creek fire

Post by squidvicious » September 2nd, 2020, 3:05 pm

I hiked to Soda Peaks Lake from Trapper Creek today. Within the first mile or so I smelled smoke and it was irritating my lungs, but didn't see anything, so I figured it must be coming in on the wind. It passed quickly and I didn't smell anything the rest of the day, including my return through the same area.

But when I was almost back to the trailhead, I noticed the Dry Creek trail was all taped off with signs saying, "Closed to public entry, wildfire area."

Searched the twitters and found this
https://twitter.com/GPNF/status/1301258155637329922
A small ¾ acre #fire is burning just east of Trapper Creek Wilderness & is thought to be caused by lightning & may have been smoldering for a while. @forestservice fire crews are on-site. Dry Creek Trail is temporarily closed to the public for #safety. Please avoid the area.
It doesn't sound like too big a deal, given that I saw no further evidence of fire or fire crews as I was leaving, but might want to check first if you were planning on heading that way.

bushwhacker
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by bushwhacker » September 2nd, 2020, 3:33 pm

Must have just missed you :D
IMG_1225 copy.jpg
Looks like it's just on the other side of Howe Ridge.
trappercreekfire-09022020.jpg
Hopefully it stays small. You could tell that the wind had started to kick up which is probably not good.

squidvicious
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by squidvicious » September 2nd, 2020, 3:38 pm

Figures the ONE TIME I didn't fill out the wilderness permit is the time there's some emergency situation. There just weren't any pencils in the box. I didn't mean to make the bad karma happen, really!

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teachpdx
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by teachpdx » September 8th, 2020, 2:30 pm

It looks like the recent heat and wind has really caused this fire to get going...
Annotation 2020-09-08 152931.jpg
Screenshot from Inciweb
It looks like it's burning into Siouxon Creek, unfortunately.
instagram: @remyodyssey

bushwhacker
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by bushwhacker » September 8th, 2020, 3:55 pm

One wonders why they didn't jump on this last week when it was little. Plus as much as folks complain about weather forecast accuracy most all of them were spot on about this wind many days ago. With the wind blowing like it is it's going to be difficult to slow this down :-(.
observationpeak.jpg
Observation Peak
siouxon.jpg
Siouxon

squidvicious
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by squidvicious » September 8th, 2020, 6:38 pm

Sure that's the same fire? The notes say detected this morning.

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drm
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by drm » September 8th, 2020, 7:45 pm

Inciweb has it between 5 and 10,000 acres. The entire Trapper Creek Wilderness is 5963 acres, for scale.

The posted maps do not include Dry Creek but it's kind of hard to imagine it wasn't an ember spread from there. Big winds are unfortunately very effective at finding remnant embers.

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xrp
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by xrp » September 9th, 2020, 11:02 am

NIFC.gov has Trapper Creek at 5,900 acres, but it hadn't been updated since last night.

The Oregon fires are massive. The one that just combined at Detroit Lake is 200,000-250,000 acres.

All that area will be GONE.

Aimless
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by Aimless » September 9th, 2020, 2:56 pm

A lot of fires mosaic burn and leave some survivors to reseed an area. I will try to hope for the best, but the extremely low humidity of the winds probably ensured that every tree was fuel. (I heard the figure 20% humidity, but have no idea if that number is real - take it as an indication.) My sad expectation is that very few green islands will be left anywhere but near the eventual peripheries of these burns. The word 'catastrophic' comes to mind. :(

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drm
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Re: Trapper Creek fire

Post by drm » September 10th, 2020, 8:32 am

The closure was announced today. Basically north of Hemlock, west of the Panther Creek Road (FR65) for the most part. So it includes Falls Creek (Falls) trail. I don't know the western parts as well but would assume Siouxon is included as well. It's being described as 22,000 acres now.

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