User:Gcarlson26/sandbox

2017 Oregon Wildfires
The 2017 fire season in the state of Oregon was a particularly notable one. There has been a trend for the last three decades that shows an increase in the overall number of wildfires as well as the fire season length in the state of Oregon. In 2017 Oregon experienced a total of 1,069 reported wildfires: with 779 human ignited and 290 ignited by lightning strikes. These fires burned a total area of 451,863 acres. The catalyst for these fires was the abnormal weather patterns that persisted throughout 2017.

2017 Climate in Oregon
The 2016/2017 winter in Oregon was the second wettest winter in the past 75 years. Between the dates of October 1st, 2016, and April 26th, 2017, Portland International Airport received 45.5inches (116 centimeters) of rain. The month of February 2017 was the wettest February on record in Oregon with 10.356 inches (26 centimeters) of rain. During the month of August, the weather station at Portland International Airport recorded a monthly average temperature of 73.6 degrees Fahrenheit (23.1 C) with the daily average temperature hitting 87 degrees Fahrenheit (30.5 C). The average temperature during the month of August 2017 was five degrees higher than the average August temperature recorded since 1941. It stands to be the second hottest August on record.

The extreme winter and summer weather that occurred in 2017 was met by some dangerous weather patterns in the late summer months. Early August through September in Southern Oregon saw several waves of thunderstorms. These storm systems brought rainfall which helped slow the growth of existing wildfires. However, the storms also brought lighting which resulted in the ignition of new fires. These storms travel on fast moving paths. After one these storms moves over an area, it quickly returns back to a hot dry state. This allows for the newly ignited fires to spread quickly and develop into full wildfires.

Climate Aided Fires in Oregon
The future climate trend in the Pacific Northwest is projected to be drastic. The current projections show that annual temperatures will rise faster than the global norm. Although temperatures will be higher, winters are expected to experience more rainfall. These seasonal extremes are exactly the type of trends that were experienced in 2017. Climatic patterns such as these provide ample rainfall throughout the spring which allows for high rates of plant growth. The high temperatures in the summer then quickly dries up the new growth. This leads to large spread availability of dry grasses and small diameter fuels. The combination of these climate driven phenomenon are what led to the extreme fire season in Oregon in 2017.

Cheatgrass
Another problem plaguing Oregon in 2017 was invasive cheatgrass. This grass has its origins in Eurasia and has become a huge problem in Oregon. In burned areas this grass quickly replaces native vegetation such as sagebrush. Cheatgrass is especially dangerous in regards to wildfires because it is highly dependent on water and typically dries out a month before native Oregon grasses. The high rainfall in 2017 allowed cheatgrass to spread abundantly throughout eastern Oregon. In areas that have cheatgrass, fire seasons have essentially been lengthened by a month due to the sooner availability of fuel. Due to its ability to both cause fires and repopulate burned areas cheatgrass is in a positive feedback loop of continual dispersal.

Human Impact on Wild Fire
Oregon’s population has been in a steady state of growth for the last three decades. With higher populations comes higher risk of human ignited forest fires. 2017 saw the devastating effects of human influenced fires. The Eagle Creek Fire burned 48,831 acres of land. This fire was ignited by a smoke bomb carelessly thrown by a 15 year old boy. Something as simple as the exhaust pipe of a car or a cigarette out of a car window can start a devastating fire.

Wild Fires
Table contains 2017 wildfires in Oregon that burned over 1,000 acres

Fires On ODF Land
The majority of the burned area within Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) held land occurred within the SOA fire region which includes the districts: Southwest, Coos, Douglas, South Cascade, and Western Lane. The SOA fire region experienced 38,384.33 acres of burned land. The EOA fire region had the second highest amount of burned area and includes the fire districts of: Central Oregon, Northeast Oregon, Klamath- Lake, and Walker Range. This fire region experienced a total of 4,992.6 acres of burned land. The NOA saw the least amount of area burned but still had 151 individual fires ignited within the region. The NOA fire region includes the fire districts of: Tillamook, Astoria, Forest Grove, West Oregon, and North Cascade. The fires in this region accounted for a total of 2168.88 acres of burned land.In 2017 the Oregon Department of Forestry had 45,681.5 acres of land burned in their forests.

Article Topic
For my article I plan on improving the "2017 Oregon Wildfires" page. At the moment there is almost no information on the page and a huge amount of room for improvement.

Proposed Article Edit
I wanted to stick with the Eagle Creek Fire Wiki page because it seems like it could use some help. I wanted my edit to include some more up to date information about closures and the general condition of the burned environment. I went to inciweb because that is a reliable government website with up to date information.

As of October 27, 2017 there is a closure in effect across the recently burned area. This closure is due to unstable ground and mass movement events caused by the recent rains. The closed area includes burned regions both in the Mt. Hood National forest and Columbia River Gorge National Scenic area.

Overview
I choose to take a look at the eagle creek fire article. I imagined there would be a pretty comprehensive review of the fire due to its prevalence in local news this past summer. A well put together and organized entry is not what I found. The Wikipedia article on the eagle creek fire is a scattered out of date time line of a few events that took place during the fire. There is no organization of time within the article which makes reading through the article rather frustrating. I know that this is an ongoing development but there at least should be a little bit of order going on.The article lacks a lot of scientific data on the fire. The information in the article is almost entirely taken from newspapers. All the citations links work except for one.There is also a title over the article saying that it is a current wild fire and information is changing.

Talk Page
The talk page seems to be the source of all the disorganization see in this article. There looks to be about 9 separate people adding things. The problem is that while there is new information being added, these new edits are being placed out of order. Going back and comparing the original verses the most up to date copy shows how this happened. The original creator has not been active in maintaining the article either.

Feedback
Good point, but can you please add a wikilink so I can access the article, and remember it has to be accessible from wikipedia. Plus, you should be able to post your ideas in the talk page too, which I could not access either. Jfaay (talk) 05:20, 30 October 2017 (UTC)