Wildfire near Marion Lake nearly fully contained
Fire crews are wrapping up operations on the 120-acre Marion Fire and will spend the rest of this week mopping-up hot spots and continuing rehabilitation in the burn area, Willamette National Forest officials said Thursday.
An aircraft with an infrared heat sensing camera flew over the lightning-sparked fire Wednesday night and detected only a few isolated patches of heat, officials said. Containment of the fire sits at 95 percent, the forest said in Thursday’s final daily update.
Fire managers and fire fighters will be working with local resource specialists from the Detroit Ranger District to return the area to as close to its natural state as possible.
“Because this fire is located in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness, we want to take measures to rehabilitate the area to reduce impacts from fire activity,” said Incident Commander Chad Calderwood.
One of the most important components of that work is rehabilitating previously dug fire line. This will restore the area visually and help with erosion control.
Trails in the Marion Lake area remain closed and will until the Detroit Ranger District can evaluate them for safety due to the abundance of snags and unstable material in the area of the fire.
The Blue Lake Trail (#3422) will likely remain closed for some time. The Detroit Ranger District hopes to open trails not directly affected by the fire within the next week.
A complete list of trails that are closed can be found on the Willamette National Forest website. This will be updated promptly as trails are reopened for public use. The Pacific Crest Trail (#2000) and the Turpentine Trail (#3490) remain open.
Smoke impacts are expected to be minimal this week. Forest visitors are asked to continue to use caution when traveling in the Marion Forks area along state Highway 22 due to fire traffic. Helicopters may still be visible in close proximity to Marion Forks and Detroit.
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Willamette National Forest Fire information: www.fs.usda.gov/goto/willamette/fire
“We realize Marion Lake is a popular hiking and camping destination,” Detroit District Ranger Grady McMahan said Wednesday. “As the firefighting efforts begin to wrap up, we will carefully evaluate the fire area and affected trails for safety.”
McMahan said that will require assessing not just the trails, but the land directly adjacent to the trail for potential hazards to hikers and campers.
The Marion Fire burned in an area that was previously burned in 2002 during the Marion Mountain Fire, resulting in a high abundance of snags, or dead and weakened trees, in varying degrees of decay.
“This poses an additional threat, because these snags can come down at any time, with either the entire tree falling at once or pieces of a tree, such as branches or the top of the trunk coming down,” McMahan said.
Firefighters have focused on suppressing the fire safely amid the abundance of snags, while utilizing “light on the land” tactics and minimizing impacts natural areas in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness.
