The Biscuit Fire was a massive

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

in 2002 that burned nearly in the

Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest The Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest is a United States National Forest in the U.S. states of Oregon and California. The formerly separate Rogue River and Siskiyou National Forests were administratively combined in 2004. Now, the Rogue R ...

, in southern

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

and northern

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, in the

Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. As American settlement i ...

. The fire was named after Biscuit Creek in southern Oregon. The Biscuit Fire was the second-largest wildfire in the modern post-1900 history of Oregon. Oregon's largest fires are actually believed to have taken place in the 1800s. The Silverton Fire of 1865 is listed as Oregon's largest at over 900,000 acres. The Biscuit Fire area is subject to warm, dry winds known as the

Brookings effect Brookings is a city in Curry County, Oregon, United States. It was named after John E. Brookings, president of the Brookings Lumber & Box Company, who founded the city in 1908. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,744. History Foun ...

(also known as Chetco effect), driven by high pressure over the

Great Basin The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...

. The fire re-burned portions of the 1987

Silver Fire The Silver Fire was a wildfire that burned in the San Jacinto Mountains south of Banning and Cabazon in Riverside County, California in August 2013. The fire, which started close to Poppet Flats Road near Highway 243, was first reported on ...

, and much of its area was re-burned in the 2017 Chetco Bar Fire.

The wildfire

The fire season in 2002 was an especially active one that started early with major fires in

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, and

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, pulling resources from the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

. Between July 12 and July 15, a series of lightning storms occurred in California and Oregon starting hundreds of small wildfires. During this period, five such fires were started within a radius of each other near the state border. Due to the fires already burning in other areas, insufficient numbers of fire crews and

smokejumper A smokejumper is a specially-trained wildland firefighter who provides an initial attack response on remote wildfires. They are inserted at the site of the fire by parachute. This allows firefighters to access remote fires in their early stag ...

s were available to combat these fires and they began to burn out of control. The large Florence Fire, which had started approximately north of the border, eventually joined what was known as the Sour Biscuit Fire, which was burning very close to the border. Once the massive Biscuit Fire was created, it ended up burning a total of , and the fire was unable to be fully contained until December 31, 2002.

Damages

The fire destroyed 4 primary residences and 10 other structures, put 15,000 residents on evacuation notice and burned most of the

Kalmiopsis Wilderness Kalmiopsis Wilderness is a wilderness area in the Klamath Mountains of southwestern Oregon, within the Rogue River – Siskiyou National Forest. It was designated wilderness by the United States Congress in 1964 and now comprises a total of .

. Despite the level of destruction, there were no deaths attributed to the fire.

Aftermath

Since the fire, the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Natio ...

has been trying to

log Log most often refers to: * Trunk (botany), the stem and main wooden axis of a tree, called logs when cut ** Logging, cutting down trees for logs ** Firewood, logs used for fuel ** Lumber or timber, converted from wood logs * Logarithm, in mathe ...

most of the severely burnt area, despite ecologists' concerns about the Port Orford Cedar, which is threatened from a root-attacking fungal-like organism that is most commonly spread on car

tire A tire (North American English) or tyre (Commonwealth English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a Rim (wheel), wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide Traction (engineeri ...

s and shoes. This will be the largest recorded

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

sale in U.S. history, and a landmark case setting the future for all

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion re ...

s in

national forests National Forest may refer to: * National forest or state forest, a forest administered or protected by a sovereign state ** National forest (Brazil) ** National forest (France) ** National forest (United States) ** State Forests (Poland) ** The N ...

. The cost of salvage logging far outweighed the proceeds from sales ($1.9 million). In 2006, a research paper on the effects of post-wildfire salvage logging caused a

controversy Controversy (, ) is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin '' controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an op ...

within the forest sciences community.

References

Citations

Bibliography