Wallowa-Whitman Forest says fire crews fully staffed, snowpack low for season

The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest told Baker County commissioners it was “fully staffed for fire,” but forest Supervisor Shaun McKinney made clear that full strength still may not be enough if the first major blaze hits early in a dry year.

McKinney’s May 6 briefing came as mountain snowpack across the forest sat well below average, with some locations at the lowest level since 1977. He said April’s heavy rains in Baker County could delay the start of very high fire danger, but the same moisture could also drive a strong flush of grass growth that dries into fine fuels by mid-summer. That combination, wet spring growth followed by fast-drying grass, is a familiar Oregon fire pattern and one that can turn a normal afternoon into a fast-moving emergency.

For Baker County homes, ranches and travel corridors, “full staffing” means more than a payroll number. The Burnt Powder Fire Zone is responsible for about 700,000 acres of Forest Service land and another 300,000 acres of mutual-aid land, and it averages about 50 fire starts a year. Fire season there typically begins in early July, peaks in mid-August and ends in early October, with June usually a busy month for preparedness training. The forest said it has two Hotshot crews and two rappeller crews, giving firefighters the ability to reach remote fires by helicopter before they grow into bigger incidents.

The region’s response system is also anchored in La Grande and Union County. The Blue Mountain Interagency Dispatch Center sits at 59973 Downs Road in La Grande, and the Blue Mountains Interagency Fire Center also houses the La Grande Air Tanker Base and the La Grande Fire Cache. The forest said the La Grande Interagency Hotshot Crew and the Union Hotshots are the only two crews in the lower 48 states that share a common base, and the La Grande crew dates back to 1967 on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest.

McKinney’s comments also tied immediate fire readiness to a longer planning fight. He discussed the draft environmental impact statement for the Blue Mountains forest plan revision, which covers the Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla and Malheur national forests. The current plans were signed in 1990, and the revision process began in summer 2023. A public meeting was planned for June 9 in Baker City, with a 90-day comment period to follow the draft.

For Baker County, the message was not just that crews are in place. It was that the county is entering fire season with staffing in hand, low snowpack in the hills and a land management system still shaping how those forests, grazing lands and logging areas will be defended when the next fire starts.