InciWeb Articles & Incidents for Washington and Oregon

August 7, 2018 – 9 a.m.Acres: 1,200 acres Percent Containment: 8% Start Date: 07/30/18 Personnel/Resources: Five 20-person crews, 3 helicopters (others available, as needed), 17 engines, 2 dozer, 295 total personnel Location: Two miles east of White Pass Ski Area, within the Goat Rocks Wilderness on the Naches Ranger District, 32 miles southwest of Naches, WA. Cause: Lightning Estimated Incident Containment or completion: 9/1/2018 Fire Fighters at the Mariam Fire Prepare for Week of Hot and Dry Conditions Current Activity: Additional resources including crews, engines and heavy equipment arrived yesterday and went to work. Good progress was made as masticators and chippers assisted hand crews in removing and chipping the dense vegetation along the Forest Road (FR) 1200-540 in the north and FR’s 1207 and 1200 on the east flank. On the north and west flanks fire managers continued to develop their containment strategy above White Pass in the difficult terrain in the Goat...

On Wednesday the 8th of August at 6:30 PM, a meeting at the Methow Valley Community Center in Twisp WA will be held for community members to listen to what is happening with the fire. Community members will be given a chance to speak with incident management personnel, agency administrators, and public information officers about fire suppression and evacuation notices. The address For the Methow Valley Community Center is 201 WA-20, Twisp, WA

Northport, WA - PUBLIC AND FIRE FIGHTER SAFETY IS THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. The NE Washington Type 3 Incident Management Team asks the public to avoid Sheep Creek road and surrounding areas due to fire apparatus. The Sheep Creek fire started on 30 July 2018 in north Stevens County near the town of Northport. The fire perimeter and acreage are unchanged and remain within the boundaries of Flagstaff and Sheep Creek roads. Falling crews continue to fall hazard trees along the line to improve safe working conditions for fire crews as they mop up. Hotter drier weather is resulting in continued consumption of unburned fuels within the fire perimeter. Smoke will be visible today. Air support remains available to help containment efforts. This morning at the 6:00 am briefing, firefighters were praised for their high level of personal responsibility in making risk based decisions given the extremely steep terrain and large trees with roots burning out. They were reminded that a successful...

COMMUNITY MEETINGS: There will be two Hendrix Fire Community Meetings this week. The first one will be held at 7 pm on Wednesday, August 8, 2018, at The Commons, Ashland Middle School, 100 Walker Avenue, Ashland, Oregon. The second meeting will start at 7 pm on Friday, August, 10, 2018, at the Hendrix Fire Incident Command Post located at the intersection of Highway 238 and Hamilton Road in Ruch, Oregon. This meeting will be followed by a short tour of the fire camp. Both meeting will be streamed on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/HendrixFire2018/.Hotter and dryer conditions will return to southwest Oregon and continue through Thursday. Maximum temperatures near the fire will be in the upper-70s to low-80s while temperatures at lower elevations will be in the triple digits starting today. Winds will be calm in the morning and then becoming northwest around 5 mph in the afternoon. The National Weather Service has issued an Excessive Heat Watch for Wednesday and Thursday for...

Due to fire traffic along the Grayback Road, expect delays of up to 30 minutes. The road is open.

The finish line for the Garner Complex is in sight. Today, fire managers placed two additional sections of the fire into patrol status. Currently, well over half of the fire has no active operations, only daily monitoring and patrol. Fire managers expect that they will place the remaining portions of the fire in patrol status at the end today’s shift. The Suppression Repair group continues to make excellent progress and expects to complete repair operations within two to three days. The incident management team’s goal has been to get the fire to a point where it could be safely and confidently handed back to the local ODF district. “History will judge us by what we leave behind,” said Rick Dolan Incident Commander for the Florida Red Team. “There’s a lot of fire season ahead of us. We want to make sure ODF can use their resources to suppress the next fire, not come back to this one.” Crews continue to find a few isolated hot spots within 100’ of the line in the...

There will be a Hendrix Fire Community Meetings at 7 pm on Wednesday, August 8, 2018, at Ashland Middle School, 100 Walker Avenue, Ashland, Oregon. Officials will provide the public with an update on fire operations.

August 6, 2018 – Contact: Megan Hill, Public Information Officer, (509) 939-5216 Northport, WA – The Sheep Creek fire near Northport, WA, has been burning since July 30th and is currently being managed by the Northeast Washington Interagency Type 3 Incident Management Team #3. There are over 350 people assigned to the fire, doing various jobs from working on the line to developing operations strategies to managing resources behind the scenes. This fire was originally managed by a National Type 3 Incident Management Team from Albuquerque, NM. The Washington State Department of Natural Resources had pre-positioned this team in the area when critical fire weather was expected. This team was staged in Colville; they were able to respond to Northport and begin managing resources very quickly. Two days later, the fire grew in size and complexity during a hot and windy afternoon. The local Northeast WA Type 3 team joined the New Mexico team and worked side-by-side for four days....

Daily Update August 6, 2018Summary: The Miles, Columbus, Snowshoe and Round Top Fires are being managed under unified command amongst the Northern Rockies Team 2 (Turman), the Oregon Department of Forestry Team 1 (Hessel) and Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Red Team (Yocum). These incidents are formally known as the South Umpqua Complex and Sugar Pine Fires. Smoky conditions across the area on Sunday helped to temper winds and moderate fire behavior. Firefighters used this break to make good progress on lining spot fires and strengthening control lines around the incident. The smoky conditions did limit air operations on fires yesterday, due to low visibility. Community Meetings: The IMTs will be hosting a community meeting in Tiller on Wednesday, August 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the Tiller Rural Fire Protection District, 27598 Tiller Trail Hwy. There will also be a community meeting in Shady Cove on Thursday, August 9 at 6:30 p.m. at the Upper Rogue Community Center, 22465 Hwy 62. Miles Fire:...

The Southwest Oregon Joint Information Center has released the update for August

Smoke Outlook attached as pdf

The Smoke Outlook for southwest Oregon has been released for August

Community Meeting tonight, 6 p.m., at the Davenport Grade School. 601 Washington Street, Davenport,

YESTERDAY: The northeast portion of the fire was the most active yesterday, with visible fire and smoke throughout the day and night. Firefighters concentrated their efforts in this area with crews, engines and dozers. Fire managers were able to continuously utilize four Fire Boss aircraft and helicopters throughout the day, to scoop water from the Spokane River arm of Lake Roosevelt, for drops over this flank. Firefighters in other divisions were able to strengthen the fireline to increase containment. A group of structure protection firefighters continued work to prep and evaluate structures ahead of the fire. Structure assessments within the fire area were conducted. With improved access and better mapping, additional destroyed structures were identified. It is important to note, these structures are not new losses. During night operations, firefighters were presented with favorable conditions for strategic firing operations along the northeastern flank to reduce fuels ahead of...

Northport, WA - PUBLIC AND FIRE FIGHTER SAFETY IS THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. The NE Washington Type 3 Incident Management Team asks the public to avoid Sheep Creek road and surrounding areas due to fire apparatus. The Sheep Creek fire started on 30 July 2018 in north Stevens County near the town of Northport. The fire perimeter and acreage is unchanged and remains within the boundaries of Flagstaff and Sheep Creek roads. Falling crews are cutting down hazard trees along the line to improve safe working conditions for fire crews as they mop up. Smoke will be visible today as interior areas of unburned fuels are consumed. Air support remains available to help suppression and containment efforts. Today’s weather will be sunny with a high temperature of 90. Conditions are expected to get hotter and drier through the week. One hundred troops from the Washington National Guard are integrated with fire crews on the line. Their efforts are highly effective at putting out hotspots and...

Cougar Creek, Bannock Lake, and Whitepine Fires Monday, August 6, 2018 Size: 4154 acresPersonnel: 677Location: 20 miles northwest of EntiatStart Date: July 28, 2018Cause: Lightning Current Activity: A community meeting was held last night at the Entiat fire station. Approximately 100 people were in attendance with another 108 streaming live on Facebook. Personnel from California Interagency Incident Management Team 5, the local fire department, and the US Forest Service reported on the fire’s progress and answered questions. The Cougar Creek fire is active in thick dead and down timber. It is creeping and backing down steep rugged terrain. Although there was very little fire growth yesterday, the vegetation in the fire’s interior continues to burn. The north and west sides of the fire are relatively stable. The east side is holding west of Tyee Ridge. The spot fires on the east and south side are being worked so that existing roads and trails can be used to establish a...

Current Status: Dufur, OR – As the fire cooled in the southeast portion of the fire, crews were reassigned to work through the night on mopping up hot spots and burning stumps, especially around structures in the north end of the fire. Fire fighters are focused on mopping up 75-150 feet inward from the perimeter of fire. It is estimated that there is approximately 50 miles of fire perimeter. Much of the line is cool, with the heat concentrated north of the Hix and Friend Rd. areas. The fire meteorologist is predicting hotter and windy conditions later this week. The more heat that fire fighters can extinguish now lessens the threat of the fire rekindling in the future. Fire fighters are seeing “dust or ash devils”. This occurs when solar heating hits the ground and the unstable atmosphere creates a whirlwind. This is a concern to fire fighters as the whirlwind can pick up hot burning embers and carry it over the fire line where a new fire could start outside the perimeter....

Size: 39,804 Acres Containment: 38%Yesterday a strong inversion and heavy layer of smoke brought shade and calm winds that moderated fire activity. Taking advantage of these conditions, crews continued firing operations into the night east of Chrome Ridge Road on the western side of the fire. Firing will strengthen lines and help achieve more containment. Low intensity fire slowly backed downhill towards established lines east of Chrome Ridge Road, south of Bear Camp Road, and south of Galice Creek. Galice Road is closed at mile 13. With assistance from Oregon National Guardsmen, crews mopped up, patrolled, and strengthened contained areas. They will continue this work today. This containment extends from the north side of the fire near Taylor Creek, around the entire east side, and to the southern end past Limpy Creek to the Onion Mountain Road. Crews from the Oregon State Fire Marshal will continue structure protection work near Galice. Some of these crews are being reassigned to...

GARNER COMPLEX #UPDATEDaily Update 8-6-18 11:00 a.m.QUICK FACTS:Size: 8,886 acres Change in last 24 hrs. 0 acresContainment: 82% - Garner ComplexStart Date/Time: 7/15/2018 9:00 a.m.Expected Containment Date: 8/10/18Location: Jackson CountyCause: LightningEst. Cost: $41,180,000 millionPersonnel: 894Assigned Resources: Handcrews: 23Engines: 31Dozers: 6Water Tenders: 17Assigned Aircraft: 10Structures Threatened: 564Structures Damaged: 0Structures Destroyed: 0Injuries: 17Firefighters on the Garner Complex are working diligently toward handing the management of the fire back to the local Oregon Dept. of Forestry district.Crews using palm-held infrared scanners are finding fewer hot spots near containment lines as mop up winds down. Eliminating hot spots continues along a portion of the western control line of the Grave Creek fire and and an eastern portion of the Pleasant Creek Fire.Extinguishing the remaining hot spots is a top priority for today’s crews. Pulling and removing hose from...