JEFF BARNARD
Associated Press Writer
RUCH, Ore. (AP) -- Dead trees burned around Bob Wilken as he kneeled in the darkness, aimed his headlamp at the ground and stuck his hand deep in the black and white ash.
``Ha! Right there!'' Wilken said, yanking his hand back. ``There's another hot spot right there!''
He had found the edge of the wildfire's creep.
It's a search best conducted at night, when the air is cooler and more humid. The wind is calm. Darkness shows off every smoldering stump and flaming stand of dead trees.
A week before, lightning started the Quartz fire that doggedly advanced through the Rogue River National Forest. It roared out of narrow canyons and over ridgetops in the heat of the day, leaving behind thousands of acres of ashen ground and blackened trees.
The explosive inferno has since been slowed to a smolder.
The reason was glistening at Wilken's feet. Thousands of gallons of water from helicopters and pink fire retardant from air tankers had been dropped on the fire's advancing edge so firefighters could dig a line around it.
Now, the Quartz fire at night is inviting, like a big campfire, torching off flames that flicker from the trunks of dead trees and embers that spout from their tops like Roman candles.
That's just slow enough so that Wilken, who has fought fire as a smokejumper, engine boss, and division supervisor, could hike to the advancing edge of the blaze in the predawn darkness Saturday to feel its pulse.
``You've got a 6,000-acre tiger and you're trying to find the tail _ without making it mad,'' he said as he hiked down a steep rocky slope toward the distant glow.
Helicopters, bulldozers and air tankers still hammer the fire during the day. But it's at night when hand crews make the biggest impact.
Not by dousing. By igniting.
They torch the trees and brush that stand just inside the ring of fire lines _ dug down to the mineral soil by the day crew _ sending flames back into the interior of the fire.
But they can only start controlled burns when the air is dead calm. On this night, crews were warned that an approaching cold front could bring gusty winds. No fires would be set.
And while much had been accomplished, much was left to do. Far off in the darkness, a single chain saw roared, marking a crew cutting still more fire line.
Up the hill, lines of headlamps bobbed where firefighters laid out 100-foot rolls of fire hose to begin pushing back the head of the fire. Division supervisor Tom Fastland figured they had hauled in 6,000 feet of hose_ more than a mile _ from the portable water tanks up at Wrangle Gap.
Oregon National Guard troops and other crews will be working for weeks digging out smoldering stumps and dousing them with water as they mop back 500 feet from the fire line. After they leave, patrols will keep a watch on the fire until the snow falls.
