Fire investigators learn the ropes ahead of season

Another fire season is quickly approaching, and with our mild winter, we could be seeing an active one.

This week, the U.S. Forest Service is putting a different group of rookies through a trial by fire — not on how to fight them, but how to find where and how they started — and possibly who started them.

The class is made up of members of the Deschutes and Wasco county sheriff’s offices, both Bend and Sisters fire departments and folks from Montana, California and Washington.

The week-long class is at a campground off China Hat Road southeast of Bend, and teaches the students how to solve human-caused fires.

“Fire will tell you where it started, so you just need to learn those indicators,” Steve Stenkamp, a Bend Fire Department inspector, said Wednesday.

Members of sheriff’s and fire agencies learned about conducting wildland fire cause investigations.

Kassidy Kern, with the Deschutes National Forest, said the lessons they learn in a controlled setting will be valuable this season.

“It’s really critical that we not be overwhelmed by the size of the fire, that we don’t appreciate that everything we do is based on scientific method and scientific techniques,” Kern said.

Learning the scientific techniques is important because of the potential for an active season.

“It looks like unless something magical happens, we could have a pretty decent fire season here in Central Oregon,” Kern said.

Wednesday’s class focused on finding the cause of a small prescribed fire set earlier this week for a classroom in the woods.

“These things, these factors and indicators are leading us right to this point to be able to actually identify,” said Gaven Marble of the Wasco County Sheriff’s Office

For John Failla of the Sisters Camp-Sherman Fire District, fire investigation and prevention is what he’s always wanted to do.

“This is awesome,” Failla said. “I really enjoy this, and this is what I’m going to live for. And so it’s nice that Sisters put me through this type of program.”

Kern said she believes this training will have them ready for the fire lines this summer.

“Now they can go and use the techniques that they’ve learned here to pinpoint points of origin, protect crime scenes and hopefully get prosecutions where we need them,” Kern said.

On Thursday, the students will interview witnesses to the mock fire and continue to assess the burn patterns. Friday morning is the final test, when they’ll present their findings to the class.