Smoldering fires could be waiting to flare up again

While we anticipate this year’s fire season, we have not quite put the past behind us. Wildfires you thought were over may still be lingering.

It’s not very common, but some fires, especially big ones like the Milli Fire near Sisters last year, have a chance to come back to life.

We’ve already seen a pair of months-old fires flare back up in recent days — in Warm Springs, where a revived fire closed Highway 26 for about an hour, and the Columbia River Gorge, where the Eagle Creek Fire raged last summer and a hotspot flared anew.

Flames can smolder underground long after the visible smoke has disappeared and even in some cases when the fire has been declared out.

“Logs can lay underneath the snow and still carry heat throughout the winter,” Central Oregon Fire Management Deputy Officer Doug Johnson said Wednesday. “When we get a wind event or the heating of the earth happens, then we can get some of those situations where we could have a flare-up in some of those large fires.”

That usually happens in the center of the burned area, since most of the work done by fire crews is on the perimeter.

Johnson advises those planning on hiking in the area of the Milli Fire or other recent ones to be cautious.

“As far as large fires, there’s always dangers associated with those afterward, especially with the dead trees that can fall over in a gust of wind,” he said. “So staying on the designated trails is certainly advisable.”

Johnson said in his 32 years at the Deschutes National Forest, he’s never seen a fire rekindle after a winter, but he did give about 50-50 odds of seeing a flare-up this year.