Unpredictable Oregon forest fire spreads, destroying dozens of homes
PORTLAND: Firefighters teamed up on Friday, July 16, to control an angry inferno in southeast Oregon that spreads miles a day in windy conditions, one of the many wildfires in the western United States that strain resources.
Crews had to flee the fire lines late Thursday after a dangerous “cloud of fire” began to collapse and threatened them with strong downdrafts and flying embers.
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An initial review on Friday showed that the bootleg fire destroyed 67 houses and 117 outbuildings overnight in a county. Authorities were still counting casualties in a second county where the flames hit up to 4 miles a day.
The fire forced 2,000 people to evacuate and threatened 5,000 buildings, including homes and smaller buildings, in a rural area north of the California border, fire department spokeswoman Holly Krake said.
In this Bootleg Fire Incident Command photo, the Bootleg Fire burns near Highway 34 in southern Oregon on July 15, 2021. (Photo: Jason Pettigrew / Bootleg Fire Incident Command via AP)
Active flames beat 200 miles around the fire, and it is expected that by nightfall it will merge with a smaller but equally explosive fire.
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The bootleg fire is now 976 square kilometers – larger than the area of New York City – and for the most part not contained.
READ: Oregon heat wave victims were older, lived alone, had no air conditioning
“We will likely continue to see fire growth for miles and miles of the active line of fire,” Krake said. “We continue to add thousands of acres every day, and it has the potential to continue those three to four mile runs any day as we look forward to the weekend.”
The inferno has handicapped firefighters for a week with erratic winds and extremely dangerous fire behavior, including ominous clouds of fire formed from overheated air rising up to 10 km above the fire.
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“We expect the exact same conditions to continue and worsen by the weekend,” Krake said of the clouds caused by the fire.
At the beginning the fire doubled almost daily, and strong winds on Thursday pushed the flames down again rapidly. Similar winds of up to 48 km / h were expected on Friday.
Members of a crew of wildland firefighters from PR Reforestation of Vancouver, Washington, dig at hot spots under tree stumps and brushes as they mop up after flames from the Snake River Complex Fire swept the area south of Lewiston earlier this week. Idaho, 07/15/2021. (Photo: Pete Caster / Lewiston Tribune via AP)
It burns an area north of the California border that, like most of the American West, has been hit by extreme drought.
Extremely dry conditions and heat waves related to climate change have inundated the region and made fighting forest fires difficult. Climate change has made the west much warmer and drier over the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and forest fires more frequent and destructive.
READ: California breaks out near deadliest forest fire in the US
The flame was most active on its northeast flank, driven by winds from the south towards the rural communities of Summer Lake and Spring Lake. Paisley east of the fire was also at risk. All cities are in Lake County, a remote area of lakes and wildlife sanctuaries with a total population of approximately 8,000.
Fireman Garrett Suza of the Chiloquin Forest Service is cleaning up a hotspot on the northeast side of the Bootleg Fire near the Sprague River, Ore, on Wednesday, July 14, 2021. (AP Photo / Nathan Howard)
The bootleg fire is one of at least a dozen major fires burning in Washington, Oregon, and California as a wildfire siege struck the drought-stricken west.
There were 70 active major fires and multiple fire complexes that burned nearly 4,297 km² in the United States, the National Interagency Fire Center said.
In the Pacific Northwest, firefighters say they face conditions more typical of late summer or fall than early July.
About 200 firefighters fought but had little control over the 44-square-mile Red Apple Fire near the Washington city of Wenatchee, known for its apples. The flames threatened apple orchards and a substation, but no buildings were lost, officials said.