The fires from the upper part of the state to the California border caused road closures and smoky skies as firefighters struggled to contain and douse flames fanned by 50 mph (80 kph) wind gusts. Officials in some western Oregon communities gave residents “go now” evacuation orders, meaning they had minutes to flee their homes.
The fires were burning across a large swath of Washington state and Oregon that rarely experiences such intense wildfire activity due to the cool, humid climate of the Pacific Northwest.
The flames trapped firefighters and civilians behind fire lines in Oregon and swept through an entire small town in eastern Washington. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown warned that devastation could be overwhelming from the fires that broke out Monday during a late summer windstorm.
“Everyone should be on high alert,” Brown said. The fires were thought to be extremely destructive around Medford in southern Oregon and near the state capital of Salem.
“This could be the largest loss of human life and property due to wildfires in our state’s history,” the governor said.
At least three people died in the Oregon fires and a young child died in the fires in Washington state. Brown said some communities were substantially damaged, with “hundreds of homes lost.”
The exact extent of the damage was unclear because many of the fire zones were too dangerous to inspect, said Oregon State Deputy Fire Chief Mariana Ruiz-Temple.
“Frankly, we can’t even get into these areas,” he said.
In Washington, a 1-year-old boy died after his family was apparently engulfed in flames while trying to flee a wildfire in the northeast part of the state, Okanogan County Sheriff Tony Hawley said Wednesday.
The boy’s injured parents were discovered in the area of the Cold Springs fire, which is burning in Okanogan and Douglas counties, Hawley said. They were taken to a Seattle hospital with third degree burns.
KOIN reported that a boy and his grandmother were killed in a wildfire near Lyons, Oregon. Marion County Sheriff Joe Kast confirmed two deaths but gave no further details. He said they probably “wouldn’t be the only ones.” Lyons is in Marion County.
The Mail Tribune in Medford reported that Jackson County Sheriff Nathan Sickler confirmed at least one death and a criminal investigation at the point of origin of a wildfire that started near Ashland in southern Oregon.
“We are still in the early stages,” Sickler told the newspaper. “Nothing has been ruled out.”
Another wildfire struck the town of Lincoln, on the Oregon coast, where residents were being evacuated to a community college to the south.
“The fire is in the city,” he said Casey miller, Lincoln County Emergency Management spokesperson. He said that some buildings had been burned, but he had no details.
The department imposed mandatory evacuation for the northern half of the city of approximately 10,000 residents, which runs along US 101 freeway,
The Pacific Northwest scenes of vehicle lines clogging roads to escape the fires were similar to the terrifying California wildfire drama, where residents fled wildfires across the state. But Northwest officials said they didn’t recall as many destructive fires at once in the areas where they were burning.
Sheriff’s deputies, who were traveling with chainsaws on their patrols to cut down fallen trees that blocked roads, went door-to-door in rural communities 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Portland, calling on people to evacuate. Since Tuesday, some 16,000 people have been told to leave their homes.
“These winds are so incredible and they are spreading so fast that we don’t have much time,” said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.
“I’ve been through hell and high tide, but nothing like this. I’ve been downed and shot, but this, last night, I’m still not over it,” Lloyd said. Dean holland, a Vietnam veteran who barely managed to escape his home in Estacada Tuesday night.
Holland said the Oregon State Police had warned him to leave earlier that day, but that the fire seemed far away and he decided to stay. Around 10 p.m., he said, his landlord banged on the door and yelled for him to leave.
Fires were burning in seven Oregon counties, and rural and suburban homes miles away from Portland were under preliminary orders to prepare for possible evacuations. Three jails were evacuated Tuesday night and Brown called the state fires unprecedented.
The Northwest is no stranger to wildfires, but most of the largest so far have occurred in the eastern or southern parts of the region, where the climate is considerably warmer and drier and vegetation is more prone to fires. than in the west of the region. part.
Fires in 2017 and 2018 reached the top of the Cascade Mountains, the long column that divides dry eastern Oregon from the lush western part of the state, but never before spread to the valleys below, said Doug Grafe, Chief of Protection. Fire Fighting in Oregon. Forestry Department.
“We don’t have a context for this amount of fire in the landscape,” he said.
Fire crews were focusing on trying to keep people out of harm’s way and prevent houses from burning down Wednesday, and officials said containing the fires was a secondary priority.
After a 30-minute tour of the South Seattle fire area in Sumner, Washington, Governor Jay Inslee said the fire is “just one example of the most catastrophic fires we’ve had in state history.”
He said more than 480,000 acres (194,424 hectares) were burned in recent days.
About 80% of the small farming town of Malden, in eastern Washington, was engulfed in flames from a rapid fire Monday.
In Sumner, helicopters flew over a ridge, dropping water over smoky areas. East Pierce Fire & Rescue fire chief Bud Backer told Inslee the recent winds were “like a blowtorch.”
Bonney Lake Police Chief Bryan Jeter said about 2,500 homes in the area received evacuation orders.
In Oregon, at least four large fires were burning in Clackamas County, a suburban Oregon county that is a Portland bedroom community. The entire county of nearly 420,000 residents was advised to be ready to evacuate Tuesday night amid winds of up to 30 mph (48 kph).
Another large fire in southern Oregon prompted evacuation orders across much of Medford, a city of about 80,000 near the California border.
And several huge fires burning in Marion County, southeast of the state capital city of Salem, merged overnight, turning the sky blood red in the middle of the day.
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