Campfire ban imposed on Willamette National Forest

A campfire ban went into effect Saturday across the Willamette National Forest, as officials cited extremely dry conditions in conjunction with current and expected weather forecasts that elevated the potential risk of wildfire throughout the area.

The temporary ban prohibits all campfires, even in developed sites and in campfire rings. Smoking is also prohibited, except in vehicles, trailers, and buildings.

“With these conditions, a small spark can become a big fire real quick,” said Sean Stafford, the forests fire management officer. “While we understand that this ban takes away from the camping experience, we must do everything possible to prevent more forest fires.”

Campers can still cook with portable cooking stoves using pressurized liquefied gas.

The Willamette National Forest stretches for 110 miles along the western slopes of the Cascade Range in western Oregon. It extends from the Mt. Jefferson area east of Salem to the Calapooya Mountains northeast of Roseburg.

So far, Central Oregon’s Deschutes and Ochoco national forests and BLM “haven’t talked about going to this level of public use restriction,” BLM spokeswoman Lisa Clark said Sunday, “but it depends on the number of human-caused fires, available resources to handle new starts, etc.”

“If a campfire ban were imposed, Clark said they “would likely also restrict road travel to main roads without vegetation in the middle, etc.”

Clark said they would try to provide at least five days advance notice of any major change in public use restrictions, “since it takes us awhile to get areas posted and information out.”

Though Central Oregon’s wildfire scene has been fairly quiet of late, new fires do emerge, such as one three miles southwest of Crescent Lake on Saturday that burned about 3/4 of an acre.

Clark said there were a half-dozen smokejumpers who worked on Incident 471 overnight and it was “looking good” Sunday morning.

The relative quet also means contract firefighters have been sent to the two large blazes burning in southwest Oregon, as well as some fires in Washington state and California, Clark said.