Elevated wildfire risk this weekend as Oregon wildfire season off to ‘aggressive start’

The Cow Valley Fire as seen from space on July 12. The fire in Malheur County is the largest in the state and has burned over 130,000 acres. (NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey).

Heat, lightning and wind have conspired to create high-risk conditions for wildfire across southern, central and eastern Oregon far earlier in the summer than state officials anticipated.

“We are fighting fire like it’s August 19, not July 19,” said Mariana Ruiz-Temple, Oregon’s state fire marshal, at a news conference Friday. The wildfire season in the Northwest can last from May through October, but typically the season is most intense from July to September.

As of Friday afternoon, there were 24 large fires of 100 or more acres burning in parts of Oregon, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, a wildfire prevention and response network that includes nine state and federal agencies across the West.

Northwest Large Fire Interactive Map displays where fires are currently burning in Oregon. (Northwest  Interagency Coordination Center)

In just the last week, Gov. Tina Kotek declared five conflagrations – meaning many structures have burned or the scale of the fires exceed local resources. They’re the result of some human-caused fires and thousands of lightning strikes earlier in the week that ignited more than 100 new fires.

Ruiz-Temple and the Oregon Department of Forestry’s deputy director of fire operations, Kyle Williams, said lightning storms that are expected Friday through Monday will further elevate risk. South central Oregon, in the Klamath and Medford areas are at highest risk Friday evening before lightning is expected to move north and east until Monday.

The two doubled down on their pleas to Oregonians to minimize the potential for human-caused wildfires so their agencies can manage scarce resources.

“We have our hands full already, and there’s more lightning coming – we can address that, as long as our resources are not busy dealing with other human caused fires,” Williams said.

So far, the number of human-caused wildfires in Oregon is below average, according to Williams. But because conditions are so hot and dry, those wildfires are getting larger and burning more acres than average.

Burn rules across state and national parks and forests have gone into effect, and fires are allowed only at some designated campsites. Officials recommend ensuring fires are properly doused and put out, that people keep vehicles off of dry grass and ensure vehicle chains are not dragging. The Oregon Department of Forestry recommends avoiding any backyard debris burning during the fire season.

Statewide emergency

On July 12, Kotek declared a statewide wildfire emergency, which enabled National Guard deployment to parts of the state and allowed state and federal resources to flow to areas in need.

“To be very honest, our wildfire season is off to a very aggressive start,” she said.

Oregon has received additional equipment and firefighters from Washington, California, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, Colorado and Florida, and Kotek expects more wildfire fighters will arrive in the coming days.

“I cannot emphasize enough: This is a dynamic, fast-moving situation for our state, and we will continue to use every resource, every person that we can get our hands on, to fight these fires,” she said.

Kotek could not provide details about whether or not the state would exceed its emergency wildfire budget, but indicated costs are adding up.

“I can say, it will be more expensive than the last fire season. I think that’s a safe bet,” she said.

Global issues with CrowdStrike security software taking down Microsoft systems has not impacted the agency’s work or any wildfire response work in Oregon, Kotek said.

Teams from the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office, Department of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are working together to protect property and natural resources. Erin McMahon, director of the Department of Emergency Management, said there have been 88 evacuation orders across the state so far this summer.

“Our firefighters are working at all hours of the day and night, in conditions that are hard for many of us to fathom,” Kotek said. “It’s going to be a long wildfire season, and we need each and every one of them.”

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