AP – Wildfires in Oregon, United States have burned more acres of land in 2024 than in any year since reliable records began, authorities said yesterday, with the mid-August peak of fire season still on the horizon.
Blazes have scorched more than 1.4 million acres Northwest Interagency Coordination Center spokesperson Carol Connolly said. That’s more than any other year since 1992, when reliable records began to be kept, she said, and surpasses the previous record set in 2020.
Connolly said 71 large fires have burned the vast majority of the land this year. Large fires are defined as those that consume more than 100 acres of timber or more than 300 acres of grass or brush.
Thirty-two homes in the state have been lost to the fires, she said, which have been fueled by high temperatures, dry weather and low humidity.
They have prompted evacuation notices across the state and largely torched rural and mountain areas, although some have also sparked closer to the Portland metro area.
Level 3 “go now” evacuation notices were in place on Friday for the small town of Cherry Grove, about 56 kilometres west of Portland, as a fire burned in nearby forest. A deputy with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office David Huey said most residents evacuated after officers went door to door encouraging them to leave.
Airplanes and helicopters were scooping water from nearby Henry Hagg Lake to drop on the fire, said spokesperson for the Gaston Rural Fire District Gert Zoutendijk. The lake was set to be closed to the public throughout the weekend.
The fire was roughly 1.3 square kilometres with zero containment as of Friday afternoon, although crews have made progress on lining the fire, Zoutendijk said.
Another fire near the Portland suburb of Oregon City led authorities to temporarily close part of a state highway in the morning and issue “go now” evacuation orders along part of the route.
