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PORTLAND, Oregon >> The nation’s largest wildfire torched a drier forest in Oregon and forced the evacuation of a wildlife research station today as firefighters had to withdraw from the flames for the ninth consecutive day due to erratic and dangerous behavior of the fire.
Firefighters were forced to back down as blazes, blown by winds and fueled by dry bone conditions, jumped fire-resistant containment lines and pushed up to 4 miles into new territory, authorities said.
The destructive Bootleg Fire in south-central Oregon lies just north of the California border and has grown to over 476 square miles, an area the size of Los Angeles.
Fire crews were also rushing to stem several “mud fires” – patches of flame that escaped lines of fire meant to contain the blaze – before they grew bigger. One of these small fires was already nearly 4 square miles in area. Thunderstorms with dry lightning were also possible today, increasing the dangers.
“We are conducting firefighting operations all day and all night,” said Joe Hessel, incident commander. “This fire is a real challenge, and we envision a sustained battle for the foreseeable future. “
Today, the fire has reached the southern edge of Sycan Marsh, a private wetland that is home to thousands of migrating birds and is a key wetland restoration research station.
The blaze, which was 25% contained, burned at least 67 homes and 100 buildings while threatening thousands more in a remote landscape of forests, lakes and wildlife refuges.
Across the state, a fire in the mountains of northeastern Oregon reached nearly 19 square miles.
The Elbow Creek fire that started Thursday caused evacuations in several small rural communities around the Grande Ronde River about 50 kilometers southeast of Walla Walla, Wash. It was 10% content.
The region’s natural features act as a funnel for the wind, fueling the flames and making them unpredictable, officials said.
In California, a growing wildfire south of Lake Tahoe hit a highway, prompting more evacuation orders, the closure of the Pacific Crest Trail, and the cancellation of an extreme bike ride through the Sierra Nevada. .
The Tamarack fire, which was started by lightning on July 4, had charred about 36 square miles (93 square kilometers) of dry brush and wood to date. Crews were improving a line protecting Markleeville, a small town near the California-Nevada border. He destroyed at least two structures, authorities said.
About 500 firefighters were fighting the blazes on Sunday, “focusing on the preservation of life and property with one-time protection of structures and the placement of containment lines where possible,” the US Forest Service said.
Meteorologists have predicted extremely dangerous fire weather conditions with possible lightning strikes at least today in California and southern Oregon.
“With very dry fuels, any thunderstorm has the potential to trigger new fires,” the National Weather Service of Sacramento, Calif., Said on Twitter.
Extremely dry conditions and heat waves linked to climate change swept through the region, making forest fires more difficult to fight. Climate change has made the West much hotter and drier over the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and forest fires more frequent and destructive.
Firefighters said in July they were facing conditions more typical of late summer or fall.
The Dixie Fire in northern California resumed life on Sunday, prompting new evacuation orders in rural communities near the Feather River Canyon. The wildfire, near the 2018 site of the deadliest U.S. blaze in recent memory, was 15% contained and covered 39 square miles. The blaze is northeast of the city of Paradise, California, and survivors of the horrific blaze that killed 85 people watched with suspicion as the new blaze burned down.
Pacific Gas & Electric equipment may have been involved in the start of the Dixie fire, the nation’s largest utility reported to California regulators.
PG&E said in a report to the California Public Utilities Commission on Sunday that a repairman responding to a circuit outage on July 13 spotted blown fuses in a conductor atop a pole, a tree leaning against the conductor and a fire at the base of the tree.
The Dixie Fire has grown to nearly 47 square miles (122 square kilometers), much of it in isolated wilderness. The utility said investigators from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection recovered material at the scene.
PG&E equipment has been repeatedly linked to major forest fires, including a fire in 2018 that ravaged the town of Paradise and killed 85 people.
At least 16 major fires were burning in the Pacific Northwest alone, according to the Forest Service.
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