BEND, OR -- Oregon’s Department of Forestry is flying reconnaissance flights across the region, looking for smoke or fires sparked by lightning. ODF’s Christie Shaw says crews have, so far, been able to keep fires small, following this week’s storm, "While there initially was a little bit of dry lightning at the very beginning, for the most part, there was a lot of moisture with them. So, that really moderated the fire behavior, allowed firefighters to get to those fires and kind of do an initial attack in a really direct way." The rain could, though, allow holdover fires to creep around for days or even weeks before getting large enough to create a visible smoke plume.
Fire crews responded to around 15 new starts Wednesday, but Shaw says things could be much worse, "This is our fire season; right? This is kind of the peak of the fire season that we see in Central Oregon, where fuels and vegetation’s been drying all summer long. And then, we get these lightning storms and this is where we see lots of big fires." But that hasn't happened yet, "We’ve had a very mild fire season up until now," Shaw tells KBND News. "We haven’t even had lightning storms hardly come through. We didn’t have fires already on the landscape that we were battling. For the most part, all of our IA resources, including aircraft and tankers, everybody was available and staffed up, knowing that these thunderstorms were coming through. So, we had a lot of resources that were able to immediately respond and get on these fires, and move from fire, to fire, to fire."
Most of the fires sparked by this week's storm were held at less than a quarter acre, but two are drawing a larger response. Incident 674 is estimated at about 120 acres. It's burning on private lands within the Post-Paulina Rangeland Fire Protection Association. And, the Doghouse Gulch Fire (pictured) near the John Day River, is estimated at 57 acres.
The Cedar Creek Fire, spotted August first in the Willamette National Forest, is more than 3,800 acres and 0% contained. Crews are using drones to search for new lightning starts near that incident. Five small lightning-caused fires were quickly contained. The Waldo Lake Wilderness remains closed to allow for firefighting activities. However, the lake itself, campgrounds and trails on the east side remain open.
