Northwest Forests Suffer Dry Fuels and Wildfires. Summer wildfires have impacted parts of Western forests and rangelands. By August 13th, a heat wave had put Western Oregon forests into IFPL 3, with interior Douglas, Lane and Linn counties in full shutdown IFPL 4. Fires have caused fire-related evacuations, smoke-polluted airsheds, destroyed timber/structures, and firefighters/equipment steadily deployed. Oregon contractors supply many firefighting crews and resources west-wide.
AOL encourages forest contractors to remain vigilant with fire precautions for this abnormally warm-dry summer. Have a safe and fire-free season!
Northwest Fire Weather Outlook. The entire Oregon and Washington geographic area is forecast to have above normal “significant fire potential” during August and September. West of the Cascades, the fire danger is predicted to last into October, as autumn dry east winds are likely to extend the season drying and create unseasonable rapid-spread dangers that month.
Forest fuel dangers across Oregon are trending at or above seasonal averages for this time of year. For September through November, temperatures are predicted to be above average and precipitation most likely to be below average for the Northwest area.
Oregon. At press time (8/14/23), 101,009 acres of wildlands had burned this season—91,320 acres human caused, and 9,689 acres lightning-caused. Of these burned acres, 96,668 acres (96% of total) were on federal or unprotected forest and rangelands.
Across the US. As of August 14th, 85 large fires were actively burning 547,000 acres in 12 states nationally. To date, 34,234 wildfires had burned 1,617,369 acres, which is below the 10-year average of 37,258 wildfires and 4,359,656 acres burned. More than 10,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel were assigned to incidents across the country.
BC, Canada. Abnormally-dry conditions, particularly in northern interior BC, created an extreme worst-ever wildfire season, burning 3.4 million acres (1.4 million hectares as of 8/1).
Significant fire potential is the likelihood that large forest wildfires could readily ignite, rapidly spread, and demand extraordinary firefighting effort. Monthly forecasts are published by Boise’s National Interagency Fire Center, online: https://www.nifc.gov/nicc/predictive-services/outlooks/
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