Some of the larger areas of hurricane concern include Cascades and eastern Douglas County and Willemet Valley to the north, Mr. Chef said. He urged residents living in the warning areas to take shelter. “If you hear a roar, go inside the house,” Mr. Scaffold said.
In the burning foothills of the cascades, flash floods were also worrisome. Clinton Rockey Key, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland, said any rain “is likely to run hard and fast if there is nothing on the ground.”
Also on Thursday, emergency teams continued to search for fire victims and survivors, who have so far killed more than 30 people in three states, destroyed thousands of buildings and burned more than 50 million acres.
Officers are still struggling against misinformation in the fire zone.
Officials in the western states, still embroiled in a deadly battle to contain the raging fires, struggled to wrap up a wave of false rumors and misinformation that caused confusion and fear in communities directly threatened by the flames.
County leaders have urged people to trust them – about the dangers of the fire and their efforts to find help.
“I want the public to fully understand that our office fees do not contain any classified information or information about any criminal group,” Rena Sheriff Craig Roberts told a news conference Wednesday evening. “No arrests have been made with any group.”
He said efforts to find the tips often led to rumors started by “friend of friend”, which investigators could not confirm or were passing observations obsessed with the wild online wild conspiracy. In one example, he said, people helping two people evacuate saw an abandoned gasoline can, and moved it to a safe place away from the fire. Someone called their activity to the police, who investigated and found out that “they were just trying to do a good deed.”
