Oregon fire deals state’s wheat farmers a cruel blow
Hopes for expected bountiful harvest have been crushed
PORTLAND, Ore. — Farmers rushed to save their livelihoods as a wildfire roared through vast Oregon wheat fields Thursday and crushed their hopes at the peak of what was expected to be one of the most bountiful harvests in years.
Farmers used water tanks on the back of pickup trucks and their own tractors to battle flames whipping across fields for the third straight day. One man was found dead near his charred tractor Wednesday, apparently overrun as he tried to clear a strip of land to protect a neighbor’s property.
Farmers who grow tens of thousands of acres of soft, white wheat typically bound for Asia said they are confronting walls of fire up to 30 feet high and wind so strong that it tosses embers ahead of the fire’s leading edge. The conditions threaten farmers working to stop the blaze from reaching the wheat.
“It’s been day after day after day of pretty horrendous winds and then the fire creates its own wind,” Alan von Borstel, who has battled the flames with his son, told The Associated Press by phone. “As the fire gets closer, you actually start to feel threatened, and if it gets too close, we realize we can’t do it, (and) we get the hell out of Dodge.”
Wheat farmers like von Borstel always have water tanks loaded on the back of trucks during the hot, dry summers. When a fire breaks out, they race to the scene alongside professional fire crews. If they have time, the farmers mow down standing wheat to slow the fire’s progress and come behind firetrucks to tamp down flames with their water.
But their most important job is called “disking.” They use a tractor attachment to till the wheat into the soil, creating a gap up to 150 feet wide between the advancing flames and the rest of the field. That gives firefighters a chance to get ahead of the blaze.
“Without the help of the farmers, this thing wouldn’t get stopped,” von Borstel said. “We try to get in front of it and there are lots of us out there. We look out for each other.”
Von Borstel’s crops so far are untouched, but his cousin lost just over a square mile on Wednesday and the fire is just a few miles from his home.
The blaze in north-central Oregon has scorched nearly 80 square miles of wheat fields and grasslands since igniting Tuesday. It was the largest of more than 200 wildfires across Oregon, many sparked by lightning.