Wildfire roundup for September 5th, 2017: Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are burning

For months, author­i­ties across the Pacif­ic North­west have been warn­ing that our region was fac­ing an extreme wild­fire risk this sum­mer that would only be exac­er­bat­ed by a lack of pre­cip­i­ta­tion. As we approach the autum­nal equinox, those fears have come to pass, with a series of dev­as­tat­ing fires burn­ing up and down the Cas­cade crest, as well as in oth­er areas of the region.

In Ore­gon, the fire that’s cur­rent­ly dom­i­nat­ing the news is the fast-mov­ing Eagle Creek fire, which has shut down I‑84 between Trout­dale and Hood Riv­er. The fire is threat­en­ing the his­toric Mult­nom­ah Falls Lodge and has already charred some of the most pris­tine areas of the Colum­bia Riv­er Gorge.

Fire­fight­ers are bat­tling the blaze but haven’t been able to stop it from spread­ing, and it is con­sid­ered to be at zero per­cent containment.

Gov­er­nor Kate Brown’s office pro­vid­ed this syn­op­sis of the lat­est devel­op­ments today pri­or to a media avail­abil­i­ty in Troutdale:

Gov­er­nor Kate Brown invoked the Emer­gency Con­fla­gra­tion Act in response to the Eagle Creek Fire in the Colum­bia Riv­er Gorge Nation­al Scenic Area at 2:44 p.m. today. At the time of the dec­la­ra­tion, the entire town of Cas­cade Locks was under a Lev­el 2 evac­u­a­tion, with oth­er homes in the com­mu­ni­ty and the Oxbow Hatch­ery at Lev­el 3. In addi­tion, the fire threat­ens Bon­neville Pow­er lines in the area.

“Crews are deployed through­out Ore­gon fight­ing some of the most intense wild­fires in the nation,” Gov­er­nor Brown said. “The swift action of fire crews respond­ing to the Eagle Creek Fire and hero­ic efforts of our Ore­gon Nation­al Guard saved lives, and I thank the crews still on the front lines who are work­ing active­ly to con­tain the fire.”

The Eagle Creek Fire was report­ed Sat­ur­day after­noon at approx­i­mate­ly 4 p.m., grew to 3,000 acres overnight, and is now approx­i­mate­ly a half a mile from Cas­cade Locks. For their safe­ty, 153 hik­ers had to shel­ter in place near Tun­nel Falls last night, but the Ore­gon Nation­al Guard was able to suc­cess­ful­ly res­cue the hik­ers. Cur­rent­ly, all hik­ers are account­ed for and are report­ed as safe.

The Hood Riv­er Coun­ty Sher­iff ini­ti­at­ed addi­tion­al evac­u­a­tion notices to the imme­di­ate­ly impact­ed com­mu­ni­ty of Cas­cade Locks.

A Lev­el 3 (Go) evac­u­a­tion notice was giv­en to res­i­dences south of Inter­state 84, and all res­i­dences north of Inter­state 84 are under Lev­el 2 (Be Set) evac­u­a­tion notice. A Red Cross Shel­ter has been set up at the Ska­ma­nia Coun­ty Fair­grounds, imme­di­ate­ly across the Colum­bia Riv­er in Steven­son, WA.

The cause of the Eagle Creek fire has been deter­mined to have been man-made, poten­tial­ly from the mis­use of fire­works. A sus­pect has been iden­ti­fied and addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion will be released as the inves­ti­ga­tion devel­ops. This inves­ti­ga­tion is being joint­ly con­duct­ed by the Ore­gon State Police, U.S. For­est Ser­vice, Hood Riv­er Sher­if­f’s Office, Hood Riv­er Dis­trict Attor­ney’s Office, and fire personnel.

Via Inci­Web, here is a list of all the major fires cur­rent­ly burn­ing in Oregon:

Click on a fire’s name to see a sum­ma­ry of where it is burn­ing and what is being done to con­tain it. The largest fires are the Chet­co Bar Fire, Nena Springs Fire, and Cin­der Butte Fire. The Eagle Creek Fire is highlighted.

Mean­while, in Wash­ing­ton State, Gov­er­nor Inslee was at the com­mand post for efforts to con­tain the Jol­ly Moun­tain Fire near Cle Elum.

This past week­end, the Gov­er­nor declared a statewide emer­gency in all of Wash­ing­ton’s thir­ty-nine coun­ties in response to wild­fire con­cerns.

Inslee’s office offered this back­ground in explain­ing the decision:

“Cur­rent weath­er fore­casts pre­dict con­tin­u­ing ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­tures through­out the state for the next sev­en days, pro­vid­ing hot and dry con­di­tions, that, com­bined with the exist­ing high-risk fire fuel con­di­tions, sup­port an active burn­ing envi­ron­ment capa­ble of pro­duc­ing sig­nif­i­cant mul­ti­ple wild­fires requir­ing the need for addi­tion­al imme­di­ate response through­out the state,” Inslee wrote in the proclamation.

Fire­fight­ers are bat­tling mul­ti­ple fires east of the Cas­cades, includ­ing the Jol­ly Moun­tain Fire in Kit­ti­tas Coun­ty. That fire has grown to more than 14,500 acres and is cur­rent­ly threat­en­ing local com­mu­ni­ties, homes and busi­ness­es. Roads have been closed and Lev­el 2 and 3 evac­u­a­tion orders are cur­rent­ly in place for near­ly 4,000 homes.

Inslee’s procla­ma­tion notes that the avail­abil­i­ty of fire­fight­ing resources through the state and west­ern Unit­ed States is lim­it­ed due to exist­ing and pro­ject­ed fire con­di­tions and activ­i­ties through­out the region.

The procla­ma­tion allows the use of Wash­ing­ton Nation­al Guard resources to help fight fires, and directs state agen­cies to uti­lize state resources and do every­thing rea­son­ably pos­si­ble to assist affect­ed polit­i­cal subdivisions.

The State Emer­gency Oper­a­tions Cen­ter is cur­rent­ly acti­vat­ed at Lev­el 2 to help mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and coor­di­nate state fire­fight­ing efforts.

Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands Hilary Franz, mean­while, has ordered a total out­door burn ban, effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly, for all of Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic lands.

With mul­ti­ple fires burn­ing on the land­scape and com­mu­ni­ties suf­fer­ing from dense lay­ers of smoke, the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Nat­ur­al Resources (DNR) has expand­ed its burn ban to cov­er the entire state.

“Wild­fire and smoke is affect­ing every com­mu­ni­ty around the state as we see the hot, dry sum­mer take its toll on our forests,” said Com­mis­sion­er of Pub­lic Lands Hilary Franz.

“With­out any relief from this weath­er in the fore­see­able future and with our fire­fight­ers spread across the North­west, we can no longer allow out­door burn­ing any­where in Washington.”

DNR has been imple­ment­ing burn restric­tions region­al­ly as local con­di­tions war­rant­ed. The statewide ban means out­door burn­ing is pro­hib­it­ed on all forest­lands that DNR pro­tects from wildfire.

Any­one caught vio­lat­ing the burn ban can face fines. Pre­scribed eco­log­i­cal burns in rare instances may be allowed if express­ly approved by Com­mis­sion­er Franz.

Burn restric­tions on fed­er­al­ly-owned lands, such as nation­al forests, nation­al parks, nation­al wildlife refuges or oth­er areas are admin­is­tered by fed­er­al agen­cies. Coun­ties and local fire dis­tricts may have addi­tion­al burn restrictions.

On Mon­day, Labor Day, DNR fire­fight­ers respond­ed to twen­ty-one new fire starts.

Fire­works and incen­di­ary devices, such as explod­ing tar­gets, sky lanterns, or trac­er ammu­ni­tion, are always ille­gal on all DNR-pro­tect­ed forestlands.

Via Inci­Web, here is a list of all the major fires cur­rent­ly burn­ing in Washington:

Click on a fire’s name to see a sum­ma­ry of where it is burn­ing and what is being done to con­tain it. The largest fires (high­light­ed) are the Dia­mond Creek Fire, Jol­ly Moun­tain Fire, and the Norse Peak Fire. The oth­ers are much smaller.

Con­di­tions in Ida­ho are also not good. The Gem State’s list of fires is short­er than Ore­gon’s, but twice as long as Washington’s.