Lightning strikes brought some 50 new wildfires to Western Oregon last week, and now some of those fires have grown into a blazes bringing air quality issues, evacuations and more. Here’s the latest:
- The fire burning in the Bull Run Watershed, east of northeast of Sandy, grew to 1,226 acres by Sunday morning.
- A level 3 evacuation order has been issued for parts of the Three Sisters Wilderness outside Bend due to the Pete’s Lake Fire.
- Fire crews have had their hands full managing both the Lookout Fire (21,135 acres), Horse Creek Fire (100 acres) and Pothole Fire (50 acres) in the McKenzie River corridor east of Eugene. Lookout and especially Horse Creek have been active and brought evacuations.
- The 31,000-acre Bedrock Fire, burning in the Fall Creek area east of Eugene, saw downgrades Sunday in its evacuation status.
- Perhaps the area hardest hit by the lightning was Umpqua National Forest, which is dealing with 11 new wildfires.