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Storms spark wildfires in Southern Oregon
By Jessica Musicar and Susan Chambers, Staff Writers
Monday, August 18, 2008 | No comments posted.
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Hundreds of lightning strikes and thunder rolls rattled the South Coast overnight, as an usually violent summer storm crawled across the region.
The storm caused momentary power outages, sparked wildfires and delayed a commercial airline flight at North Bend.
At the Southwest Oregon Regional Airport, Weather Observer Tom Richmond said Horizon Flight 193 was pushed back 30 minutes this morning because of the lightning.
“They don’t take off in that kind of a situation,” Richmond said.
One-tenth of an inch of rain sprinkled the area starting at midnight through mid-morning. There were numerous cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, including one that hit the airport’s new terminal and caused a brief outage at 6 a.m.
Firefighters throughout southern Oregon have been working round the clock to douse and search for fires ignited during the weekend, a Coos Forest Protective Association press release said. CFPA firefighters snuffed three fires and continued to search for others across the agency’s 1.5 million-acre district. Close by, the Alder Creek Fire, just north of Bandon, and the Lone Pine Lane Fire, three miles east of Coquille, each burned less than an acre. CFPA also sent firefighters to help the Douglas Forest Protective Association, which is working on 22 fires.
Lightning and thunder didn’t stop the Titan Salvage crews from continuing work on the New Carissa salvage Sunday on Coos Bay’s North Spit.
Salvors were in the wreck, cutting through steel and preparing to reinforce parts of it to reposition the pulling chains farther down on the hull on Sunday, even as rain from the thunderstorm pelted the wreck. Crews knocked off a little early in the afternoon, though.
They were on their way to the wreck this morning as well, shortly after most of the thunder and lightning passed over the area.
NRC Environmental Services response crews also maintained their vigilance over the beach near the wreck over the weekend and throughout the storm.
Project Supervisor Randy Henry found tar balls on Friday and called in teams to clean the beach. A local team of six people worked on the beach until a half dozen NRC people arrived from Portland. By today, only two remained.
“We’ve run out of things to pick up,” Henry said today. “There’s just a small trickle of particulates that occur primarily at the low, low tide.”
The small tar balls Friday likely were exposed due to a combination of salvors’ work and somewhat heavy surf that hit the coast last week.
Similar surf will pound the coast again this week, National Weather Service forecasters said, as a strong low-pressure system works its way down from the Aleutian Islands. And rain will come with it.
“This is a significant front,” NWS spokesman Ryan Sandler said.
More thunderstorms could hit Curry and Coos counties today and bring with them up to 3⁄4 of an inch of rain to the Bay Area and more than an inch in the Coast Range through Wednesday.
Ocean swells of about 12 feet could hit the coast Thursday, forecasters said of the storm that is more typical of winter weather rather than weather in August.
By the weekend, warm, sunny or partly cloudy weather should be the norm, Sandler said.
“This is definitely a strong weather system,” he said, “the kind you’d expect in early October.”
The storm caused momentary power outages, sparked wildfires and delayed a commercial airline flight at North Bend.
At the Southwest Oregon Regional Airport, Weather Observer Tom Richmond said Horizon Flight 193 was pushed back 30 minutes this morning because of the lightning.
“They don’t take off in that kind of a situation,” Richmond said.
One-tenth of an inch of rain sprinkled the area starting at midnight through mid-morning. There were numerous cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, including one that hit the airport’s new terminal and caused a brief outage at 6 a.m.
Firefighters throughout southern Oregon have been working round the clock to douse and search for fires ignited during the weekend, a Coos Forest Protective Association press release said. CFPA firefighters snuffed three fires and continued to search for others across the agency’s 1.5 million-acre district. Close by, the Alder Creek Fire, just north of Bandon, and the Lone Pine Lane Fire, three miles east of Coquille, each burned less than an acre. CFPA also sent firefighters to help the Douglas Forest Protective Association, which is working on 22 fires.
Lightning and thunder didn’t stop the Titan Salvage crews from continuing work on the New Carissa salvage Sunday on Coos Bay’s North Spit.
Salvors were in the wreck, cutting through steel and preparing to reinforce parts of it to reposition the pulling chains farther down on the hull on Sunday, even as rain from the thunderstorm pelted the wreck. Crews knocked off a little early in the afternoon, though.
They were on their way to the wreck this morning as well, shortly after most of the thunder and lightning passed over the area.
NRC Environmental Services response crews also maintained their vigilance over the beach near the wreck over the weekend and throughout the storm.
Project Supervisor Randy Henry found tar balls on Friday and called in teams to clean the beach. A local team of six people worked on the beach until a half dozen NRC people arrived from Portland. By today, only two remained.
“We’ve run out of things to pick up,” Henry said today. “There’s just a small trickle of particulates that occur primarily at the low, low tide.”
The small tar balls Friday likely were exposed due to a combination of salvors’ work and somewhat heavy surf that hit the coast last week.
Similar surf will pound the coast again this week, National Weather Service forecasters said, as a strong low-pressure system works its way down from the Aleutian Islands. And rain will come with it.
“This is a significant front,” NWS spokesman Ryan Sandler said.
More thunderstorms could hit Curry and Coos counties today and bring with them up to 3⁄4 of an inch of rain to the Bay Area and more than an inch in the Coast Range through Wednesday.
Ocean swells of about 12 feet could hit the coast Thursday, forecasters said of the storm that is more typical of winter weather rather than weather in August.
By the weekend, warm, sunny or partly cloudy weather should be the norm, Sandler said.
“This is definitely a strong weather system,” he said, “the kind you’d expect in early October.”
No major outages
For all the noise, local power users lucked out after last night’s booming storm.
A Pacific Power spokesman said there were no prolonged power outages reported this morning in Coos County. There may have been small pockets of outages, but nothing large enough to be reported.
In Curry County, Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative experienced minimal outages from Port Orford down to Brookings. At 9 a.m., four houses were still without power. It was mostly blown fuses from power surges, spokeswoman Christine Stallard said.
In the Reedsport area, power officials reported few storm impacts.
“We’ve had some bumps, but no prolonged outages,” said Stuart Jarmain, spokesman for Central-Lincoln People’s Utility District.
For all the noise, local power users lucked out after last night’s booming storm.
A Pacific Power spokesman said there were no prolonged power outages reported this morning in Coos County. There may have been small pockets of outages, but nothing large enough to be reported.
In Curry County, Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative experienced minimal outages from Port Orford down to Brookings. At 9 a.m., four houses were still without power. It was mostly blown fuses from power surges, spokeswoman Christine Stallard said.
In the Reedsport area, power officials reported few storm impacts.
“We’ve had some bumps, but no prolonged outages,” said Stuart Jarmain, spokesman for Central-Lincoln People’s Utility District.
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