Costly wildfire season winding down in Oregon

There are 13 wildfires still burning in Oregon, but most are either fully or mostly contained. We’re coming off the most expensive fire season on record in Oregon, with almost half a million acres of National Forest land burned, 58 percent above average.

A good portion of that number comes from the Eagle Creek Fire, which is only 50 percent contained, but doesn’t have firefighters as concerned as before.

“Whenever we have a large-scale fire event, something like the Chetco Bar or the Eagle Creek Fire, often the things that will put those fires out are what we call a season-ending event,” Deschutes National Forest spokeswoman Kassidy Kern said Thursday. “That does mean a significant amount of snow or rain.”

Heading into the tail end of October, it’s a safe bet we’ll see one of those events soon.

Here in Central Oregon, we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for an event like that for the Milli Fire, which was a product of the frantic rate of starts in the summer.

“We always have about 1-2 percent of our fires that we just can’t catch,” Kern said. “The day we had the Milli Fire, we were responding to 98 initial attacks.”

The precautionary measures crews are taking now are crucial to fighting fires like the Milli Fire.

“As we are in prescribed burning season, it’s a good reminder for folks that anchoring into some of those prescribed burns really allowed us the advantage over that wildfire to protect our communities,” Kern said.

Over 27,000 people fought wildfires this summer, with over $2 billion spent. The Forest Service even had to extend several employees beyond their normal summer schedules, which is very rare.

The fires still burning in Oregon include the the Chetco Bar, Miller Complex, Falcon Complex, Umpqua North Complex, Stacey, Kelsey, Jones, Rebel, Nash, Horse Creek Complex, Potato Hill and Eagle Creek fires.

For more information: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/state/38/