Rooster Rock Fire at 6,000 acres

The Rooster Rock Fire grew to about 6,000 acres Thursday— and has burned into an area key to the agreement to create a community forest west of Bend.

Winds have pushed the fire, which started about 6 miles southwest of Sisters, further south, into the northern section of land owned by Fidelity National Timber Resources. The Oregon Legislature has approved a plan for Fidelity to develop about 200 dwellings in that area, if it sold 30,000 acres to the Deschutes Land Trust to create the Skyline Forest.

Fidelity is watching the fire carefully, said Greg Lane, chief operating officer with the company, and hoping for the best.

The company will have to gauge the extent of the fire's damage before determining what to do next — and what the possible implications are for the Skyline Forest plan, he said.

“It really is a wait-and-see scenario at the moment,” he said. “And we'll have to see what the end result is before we can make a determination on what we would need to do to, in essence, modify the legislation to keep the deal intact.”

The Deschutes Land Trust, which would buy and maintain Skyline Forest, is keeping a close eye on the fire as well, said Brad Chalfant, executive director of the Bend-based nonprofit.

The fire might not even be an issue for Fidelity's development proposal, he said, noting that the Tetherow destination resort is located on land previously burned in the Awbrey Hall Fire. And fires have different effects depending on how hot they burn — the Rooster Rock Fire could kill all the trees in a stand, or it could simply clear out all the grasses and shrubs close to the ground.

“There's a tendency on the part of a lot of folks to think that something that's burned is forever lost,” he said. “But the reality is forests have always burned, forests will continue to burn, and forests come back after fires.”

And the fire underscores one reason the Land Trust has been working to acquire the property, Chalfant said.

If homes and other buildings are scattered through a forest, firefighters can be put in risky and costly situations trying to defend that property. But in a managed forest, there would be more flexibility, he said.

“You can pull crews out. You don't have to worry about making a valiant stand,” Chalfant said.

Although no homes have burned because of the fire, one storage outbuilding has burned.

And now friends and co-workers have set up a fund at Bank of the Cascades to help Sisters quilter Jackie Erickson, who has worked at the Stichin' Post in Sisters for more than 20 years, who lost almost all her quilts and family keepsakes when the building burned.

Erickson and her husband were getting ready to move, said Jean Wells, owner of the Stichin' Post, and had packed up personal items, quilts and more. They were storing the items in their large outbuilding when the fire came through.

“So she just lost all her special stuff,” Wells said. “She has two quilts on display at the store, and all the rest are gone.”

The Rooster Rock Fire is not currently threatening residences or structures, and is moving away from them, said Alexis West, public information officer with the fire.

‘Things are holding'

And the fire did not grow too much Thursday afternoon, she said, although earlier the possibility of thunderstorms had fire officials concerned about erratic winds and unpredictable fire and smoke behavior.

“Things are holding so far,” West said, early Thursday evening. “We can't say they're secure, but it's better than we've been.”

Forty percent of the fire was contained Thursday, according to public information officers.

Smoke hung in the air over parts of Bend on Thursday, and Central Oregon residents can expect more smoke as the fire burns within the perimeter, she said.

Stronger winds, with gusts up to 25 miles per hour are predicted for today, she said, but it's hard to predict what the fire or smoke will do.

But so far, with the winds blowing smoke to the south for most of the week, the skies have mostly been blue in Sisters, said Erin Borla, executive director of the Sisters Chamber of Commerce. And she has been trying to reassure potential visitors that businesses and recreational opportunities are open.

“We're trying to get the story straight,” she said. “We have blue skies right now. We have very little smoke in Sisters.”

Kate Ramsayer can be reached at 541-617-7811 or at kramsayer@bendbulletin.com.