From Mike Cafferata, Forest Grove District Forester, Oregon Department of Forestry
With the welcomed cooler weather Oregon Department of Forestry Northwest Region are dropping back fire danger levels, effective August 29th, 2023 at 01:00am
IFPL I for NW-1
IFPL II for NW-2 and NW-3
Moderate (Blue) for Public Use Restriction in NW-1, NW-2 and NW-3
Here is an excellent update from the West Oregon District below on their fires.
From Michael Curran, District Forester, Oregon Dept of Forestry, West Oregon District
Some of the below info will be redundant for some of you but I wanted to get a broader update out on the lightning fires the district has been working on now that I have time to do so. Apologies for the duplication of info for some of you.
Before I dig into fire updates, we will be experiencing a cooler weather pattern over the next week with increased humidities. There is some potential for moisture later this week. If it does materialize, it will be minimal but provide some welcomed relief even if it is for a short-term duration. With this, we will drop WO-2 back down to an IFPL2 starting tomorrow (08/29/23). Everything else will remain the same. As the week progresses, we will monitor the conditions daily and see if any more changes can be made. Our fuels are still very dry so please do not let your guard down as we will still get fire starts even with the cooler weather. Starting tomorrow our restrictions will be:
Public Use
WO-1: HIGH
WO-2: HIGH
WO-3: HIGH
IFPL
WO-1: IFPL2
WO-2: IFPL2
WO-3: IFPL3
I wanted to give a brief update on the statewide front right now with our fire season. As most are aware, the state took widespread lightning late Thursday night with little to no rain in most locations. What is unique about this lightning event is that there was significant fire activity in most districts across the entire west side of the state. DFPA, Western Lane, South Cascade and West Oregon districts were hit particularly hard. Incredible effort and success at IA have been prevalent and per normal ODF fashion, districts have been able to catch most fires at initial attack. This was a perfect example of ODF working with landowners and cooperating agencies to highlight how the complete and coordinated system is supposed to work! The Tyee Ridge Complex (19 individual fires) in DFPA is currently sitting at approximately 2000+ acres and the agency deployed IMT 1 to this incident Friday night. ODF is also engaged on multiple forest service fires across the Cascade and Coast Ranges.
For the district fires, I would classify this lightning event as significant due to the number strikes received and fires that resulted from them. In all, we had 11 fires ignite last Friday. Benton County was hit the hardest. Below is a quick update on all the fires we experienced:
- Honeygrove Fire (.1 acres)
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- Fully mopped up
- Tatum Fire (2 acres)
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- Fully mopped up
- South Mtn Fire (11.58 acres)
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- Fully lined, and in full mop-up mode. Will be engaged on this fire for another few days.
- Rock Creek Fire (13 acres)
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- We are assisting our Forest Service partners on this fire as it is a threat to ODF protection. This fire is lined as of yesterday and mop-up beginning today.
- Madsen’s Knob Fire (.2 acres)
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- Fully mopped up
- Starr Creek Fire (10.3 acres)
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- Fully lined, and in full mop-up mode. Will be engaged on this fire for another couple of days.
- Mary’s River Rd. Fire (.35 acres)
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- Fully mopped up
- Saxton Fire (.01 acres)
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- Fully mopped up
- 430 Rd. Fire (.25 acres)
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- Fully mopped up
- Hatchery Fall Creek Fire (7.2 acres)
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- Fully lined, and in full mop-up mode. Will be engaged on this fire for another few days.
- Lambert Fire (.01 acres)
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- Fully mopped up
We are working on a district wide map that shows where all the fires are. Once completed, I can share out if there is an interest. I want to thank all the landowners, operators, fire departments, our federal counterparts with the BLM and Forest Service, and our local vendors for all their assistance with this event. We would not have been able to keep all our fires small if it was not for your help. I also want to commend my staff for the work with this event as it took everyone working together for long hours to ensure we minimized the acres burned and provided the necessary support to our firefighters. We still have a few days left with some of these fires to ensure they are 100% mopped up. I would ask that our landowners and operators please continue to look for any new starts while you are out on your job sites as a holdover fire could be a high possibility with this storm.
