3/12/2023 0 Comments Pacific northwest fires“We do not have a context for this amount of fire on the landscape,” he said. The Northwest is no stranger to wildfires, but most of the biggest ones until now have been in the eastern or southern parts of the region - where the weather is considerably hotter and drier and the vegetation more fire-prone than it is in the region’s western portion.įires in 20 crested the top of the Cascade Mountains - the long spine that divides dry eastern Oregon from the lush western part of the state - but never before spread into the valleys below, said Doug Grafe, chief of Fire Protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry. Three prisons were evacuated late Tuesday and Brown called the state’s blazes unprecedented. Around 10 pm, he said, his landlord came pounding on the door screaming at him to go.įires were burning in seven Oregon counties and rural and suburban homes miles away from Portland, Oregon’s largest city, were under preliminary orders to prepare for possible evacuations. Holland said Oregon State Police had warned him to leave earlier in the day, but the fire seemed far away and he decided to stay. I’ve been shot down and shot at but this - last night, I’m still not over it,” said Lloyd Dean Holland, a Vietnam veteran who barely escaped his home in Estacada on Tuesday night. “I’ve been through hell and high water but nothing like this. “This could be the greatest loss of human life and property due to wildfire in our state’s history,” the governor said. The blazes were thought to be extremely destructive around Medford, in southern Oregon, and near the state capital of Salem. “Everyone must be on high alert,” Brown said. Kate Brown warned that the devastation could be overwhelming from the fires that exploded Monday during a late-summer wind storm. The fires trapped firefighters and civilians behind fire lines in Oregon and leveled an entire small town in eastern Washington. (AP) - Deadly windblown wildfires raging across the Pacific Northwest destroyed hundreds of homes in Oregon, the governor said Wednesday, warning it could be the greatest loss of life and property from wildfire in state history.įirefighters struggled to contain and douse the blazes fanned by 50 mph (80 kph) wind gusts and officials in some western Oregon communities gave residents “go now” orders to evacuate, meaning they had minutes to flee their homes.ĭestructive blazes were burning in a large swath of Washington state and Oregon that rarely experiences such intense fire activity because of the Pacific Northwest’s cool and wet climate. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.ĮSTACADA, Ore. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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