Arts, Entertainment and Events, Front Page, Lowell/Jasper/Fall Creek, Oakridge/Westfir

Oakridge Keg & Cask Festival rescheduled for Nov. 6 as command post reports ‘great success’ on fires

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Framed by the southern end of the covered bridge over Dexter Lake at Lowell, a U.S. Forest Service fire truck passes beneath a banner promoting the Oakridge Keg & Cask Festival, now rescheduled for Nov. 6. Doug Bates/The Herald

By DOUG BATES/Editor/The Herald — Saturday had been envisioned as a toasty August day when the streets of Oakridge would be filled with food booths, performing musicians, beverage vendors and happy celebrants of what used to be prized as the best summer weather in America.

Instead, the Keg & Cask Festival had to be canceled for the second year in a row in a town blanketed by lung-searing, eye-burning air deemed “very unhealthy” for anyone to breathe.

But there was something else besides smoke in the Oakridge air Saturday, something new: cautious optimism.

“Overall, the weather is in our favor, the fires are behaving for now and we’re having great success across all of them,” said Dan Quinones, deputy incident commander for the federal team that’s been battling a cluster of wildfires near Oakridge for more than two weeks.

“Great news on the weather front and the fire front,” Quinones said Saturday in the fire command post’s daily briefing. “We’re cautiously optimistic right now.”

His briefing (see video on the Middle Fork Complex fires website) was by far the most upbeat report the public has received since a barrage of lightning ignited a dozen fires in the Willamette National Forest near Oakridge-Westfir on July 29. All but three of them have been declared contained, and Quinones sounded hopeful about the Kwis Fire that still burns just three miles east of Oakridge.

Maintaining the ‘footprint’ of the fire threatening Oakridge

Has Kwis been contained? Quinones didn’t use that word, but he came close.

“We have held onto that footprint,” he said of the 1,482-acre Kwis Fire. “It hasn’t been an easy haul (on) very steep ground, large material. Firefighters are getting tired, I’ll be honest. They’ve been slugging this thing out for quite some time, not just here but also on previous fires.

“They continue to amaze and do quality work and hold that current footprint on the Kwis Fire.”

In a separate briefing Saturday, Steve Bergman of the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s office said its task force had completed fire-safety assessments at about 500 Oakridge-Westfir homes, and inspections would continue this weekend. Once inspected, property is posted with a green placard bearing information aimed at aiding fire crews that may have to defend the property from encroaching fire.

“Kwis, right now, is looking very good from the structural side of things, Bergman said. “All in all, we’re looking very good.”

Such optimism did not arrive in time to save the Keg & Cask Festival from cancellation. Even if the nearby wildfire had been declared contained and the town safe from it, the thick smoke that still choked Oakridge made it an impossible place for a community festival Saturday. LRAPA, the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority, posted an air quality index of 237 for Oakridge on Saturday. The agency rates that as “very unhealthy” for anyone to breathe.

Keg & Cask Festival rescheduled for November

Meanwhile, members of the festival committee were already swinging into high gear on a rescheduled Keg & Cast celebration, tentatively set for Nov. 6.

“As a hopeless optimist, I was initially pushing to move forward with the event,” said committee member George Custer. “Calmer heads on the committee convinced me otherwise. Plus, moving the festival forward to November re-energized me.”

Amy Kelley, festival committee chair, “has been contacting all of the sponsors to not only thank them, but determine the disposition of this year’s sponsorships,” Custer said. As list of those sponsors appears below.

All proceeds from the festival go to the Oakridge Food Box in what has become the community’s major fund-raising event for the pantry.

“At the end of each festival, after all the bills are paid, 10% of the remaining net goes toward seed money for the next year,” Custer said. “This starting balance grows (hopefully) each year. It is from this starting balance that determines that year’s budget.”

So far, the Nov. 6  date is firm, Custer said. The committee hopes to have the rescheduled Keg & Cask Festival in the old City Public Works building on Highway 58.

“It has several roll-up doors that will give us options based on the weather,” he said. “The committee plans to roll up their sleeves and give the building a thorough cleaning from stem to stern.”

Custer said the committee has contacted the three bands that had been scheduled to perform Saturday, and they are all on board for the new date.

“So, in all, I guess you could say we had another good practice run,” Custer said. “November should prove to be a great event.”

Custer, an Oakridge contractor, is president of the board of the nonprofit Highway 58 Herald. Kelley, an Oakridge business owner, is also the office manager and editorial assistant for The Herald.

oakridge keg & cask festival,lowell covered bridge,wildfires
Keg & Cask Festival committee members acknowledged Lane Electric Co-op’s crews for erecting promotional banners such as this one near the southern end of the covered bridge over Dexter Lake at Lowell. Doug Bates/The Herald

Festival sponsors acknowledged

Here is a list of sponsors, all of which have signed on for the rescheduled event, that the festival committee wants to thank:

GOLD LEVEL — Lane Electric, Ray’s Food Place, Nova Health, Alpine Stream Construction, Oakridge Pharmacy

SILVER LEVEL — Orchid Health, Oakridge Tire Center, The 3 Legged Crane, The Uptown

BRONZE LEVEL — Oakridge Sani-Haul, Joy Kingsbury, Willamette Mercantile, J. Davidson & Sons Const., Saxon Insurance, Casey’s Riverside RV Park, Banner Bank

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