A wildfire in eastern Baker County that had major potential for rapid growth ended up fizzling early Monday evening, July 5, but it took half a dozen aircraft, along with bulldozers and firefighters on the ground, to foil the flames.

“It was a real bad place for a fire,” said Joel McCraw, fire management officer for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest’s Whitman Ranger District.

“It was a great catch. That fire could have gotten really bad really quickly.”

The blaze, along North Pine Creek in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area about 10 miles northeast of Halfway, burned about 3 1/2 acres.

But the danger was much greater than the comparatively modest size suggests, McCraw said.

The combination of thick brush, mature trees and a record-setting heat wave could have proved a combustible mix, he said.

“It’s steep, rugged country,” McCraw said.

And it’s country that’s prone to big blazes.

The Foster Gulch fire burned 53,000 acres in the area in July and August 2006.

The fire was sparked by lightning.

Monday’s fire along North Pine Creek was not.

The fire was human-caused, and investigators are still assessing the blaze, McCraw said.

The fire was reported Monday afternoon in the dispersed camping area beside the Wallowa Mountain Loop Road, also known the Forest Road 39.

The area is about five miles north of Highway 86, which runs between Halfway and Oxbow, at the Snake River.

McCraw said no one was camping in the area when fire crews arrived. The fire apparently started on the east side of North Pine Creek, which runs beside the Loop Road.

Campfires are not allowed at that site because it’s not a designated campground or recreation site, and the Wallowa-Whitman last week enacted Phase B of public use restrictions, McCraw said.

Under Phase B, campfires are allowed only in designated sites and in wilderness areas.

The Forest Service temporarily closed a section of the Loop Road; it reopened Tuesday, July 6.

McCraw said firefighters from Wallowa-Whitman offices in Halfway, Baker City and Enterprise rushed to the fire.

They were helped by five single-engine air tankers dropping fire retardant, three of which flew from Burns, and two from La Grande, McCraw said.

The John Day Interagency Dispatch Center summoned a heavy helicopter capable of dropping 900 gallons of water from its dangling bucket.

Crews used bulldozers to open a couple of old roads and use those as firelines, and firefighters also dug line on other parts of the blaze, McCraw said.

“They did a really good job with the initial attack,” he said.

By dark Monday the fire had quieted, and it was surrounded by control lines.

On Tuesday morning the 20-person Union Hotshot crew, along with a 20-member crew from the Bureau of Land Management’s Vale District, were securing those lines and starting to mop up, McCraw said.

He said it was vital to corral the fire on Monday, given the weather forecast for continued hot temperatures and the potential for lightning, which starts most fires in the area, as well as gusty afternoon winds.

Crews quickly corral new lightning fires

Lightning started at least three new wildfires in Baker County on Tuesday evening, July 6, but crews responded rapidly and doused all three before any had burned more than one-tenth of an acre. One fire started near the elk-feeding station on Old Auburn Road, about nine miles south of Baker City. The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) handled that blaze. Another fire was about two miles south, near the junction of Denny Creek Road and Highway 7. The BLM was in charge of fighting that blaze. The other fire, under ODF jurisdiction, was near Bridgeport.