Oak Flat? White Lightning? How forest fires get named
EUGENE, Ore. - What's in a name? When it comes to wildfires, names can be as unpredictable as wind whipped fire.
Take the fire that started on Thursday, Aug. 19, near Thurston in Springfield.
That day Ken Rose with the Department of Forestry told KVAL News reporter Laura Rillos the fire was named the "Potato Hike #2."
KVAL called it that name for several days on TV and on line. By the weekend a few viewers called us to say we had the name wrong.
KVAL called Oregon Department of Forestry spokesman Kevin Weeks on Monday, who said the fire is called "Potato Hill."
So, why were we confused? Kevin said, "We're not always precise with our diction."
Somewhere along the way "hike" became "hill." And the fire is burning on Potato Hill, so it was a natural progression.
It turns out naming wildfires is an inexact science.
Tom Lavagnino, a veteran fire fighters and fire information officer for the Oregon and California Inter-agency Incident Management Team, said fires are named by the first agency to respond on the scene. They generally choose a name based on the closest geographic reference.
But in the case of the Oak Flat Fire, burning in Southern Oregon, the first people to spot the smoke on the Illinois River and call it into the dispatchers "thought" it was near an area called Oak Flat.
Turns out it was closer to Briggs Creek, but by the time they figured that out, the name "Oak Flat" had already stuck.
Fires may also be renamed several times as they move, grow or merge with other fires.
Lavagnino said the famous Biscuit Fire of 2002 that burned nearly a half million acres in the Siskiyou National Forest didn't start out named the Biscuit Fire. It was actually two fires, the Florence Fire and the Sour Biscuit fire, that merged into one.
Traditionally, a complex of fires is named for the largest fire. But Lavagnino said when they started calling it the Florence Fire, the City of Florence, hundreds of miles away on the Central Oregon Coast, complained. They feared that tourists would stay away, mistakenly thinking the town was on fire.
"So political pressures came into play and the fire was renamed again." said Lavagnino.
In the case of the White Lightning Fire burning north of Madres, seven lightning-caused fires on the Warm Springs Reservation - all with different names - merged into one fire, and it was renamed White Lightning.
As for the Potato Hill or Potato Hike fire, fire managers said the important thing is that firefighters know how to find them. As long as everyone is on the same page, the name is, well, just a name.
Here are some of the names of fires burning in the West currently:
- Gravel Fire, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming
- Hurd Fire, Boise National Forest, Idaho
- Alder Creek Fire, Lolo National Forest, Montana
- Bull Fire, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming
- Poso, Los Padres National Forest, California
- North Fork Fire, Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming
- Sheep Fire, Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, California
- Arthur 2 Fire, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
- Monte Fire, Cleveland National Forest, California
- White Lightning Complex, Warm Springs Agency, Oregon