KLAMATH COUNTY, Ore. — The Bootleg Fire, a wildfire that broke out in southern Oregon’s mountains is spreading in windy, hot and dry conditions. As of Friday morning, the fire had grown to 38,892 acres, more than doubling in size during the past 24 hours. Fire officials have reported between 0% to 1% containment.
The fire is burning in steep, rugged terrain in mixed conifer and lodgepole pine in the Fremont-Winema National Forest, about 10 miles northeast of the unincorporated community of Sprague River.
Gert Zoutendijk with the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s incident management team said the fire is threatening 3,000 homes.
Zoutendijk said the focus Friday would be identifying more homes and contacting people in those areas, “making sure we can quickly help them with making defensible space and getting our crews familiar with what is up there.”
Level 3 (go now) evacuation orders are in place for the Upper Tableland area north of Oregon Pinse Road, near the town of Sprague River, and the Sycan Estates area, which is north of the town of Beatty.
Level 2 (get set) orders are in place for the area north of Highway 140 on both sides of Godowa Springs Road and the Klamath Forest Estates/Moccasin Hills area.
An evacuation shelter has been set up at the Beatty Community Center.
For the latest evacuation alerts, please visit the Klamath County Facebook page.
Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue said Wednesday that task forces from Yamhill, Polk and Marion County were deployed to help fight the fire.
Zoutendijk said two strike teams arrived from California with 12 pieces of equipment on Friday morning. Another task force arrived from Clatsop County and two more, one from Clackamas County, are on their way, Zoutendijk said.
Another fire, the Jack Fire, burning east of Roseburg in Douglas County, has grown to an estimated 5,477 acres, as of Friday morning, and officials said additional evacuations were ordered Wednesday evening in the area of Dry Creek near Highway 138.
Gov. Kate Brown has invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act that makes more state resources available to fight the fires.
This is a look at the fire conditions firefighters are up against on the #BootlegFire. The last few days have seen challenging weather conditions. We ask that you be #WildfireAware and do everything to prevent sparking a fire. #Wildfire #Oregon pic.twitter.com/FkUxh7ndIF
— Oregon OSFM (@OSFM) July 9, 2021
Dang Henry, that’s awfully close to your home. May you and Laura stay safe and may you somehow have air that is breathable.
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Stay safe brother. The bill of rights will live on.
anger and sadness
You called it Henry! When Summer comes to Klamath, the fires come with it! I hope that you and Laura will be safe and that your house will be unaffected by the fire.
“The fire is burning in steep, rugged terrain in mixed conifer and lodgepole pine in the Fremont-Winema National Forest, about 10 miles northeast of the unincorporated community of Sprague River.”
“unincorporated, I wish the United States of America still was!
Dang it is right, Henry! Wish you all would have gotten the rain we did out here in the mountains of far west Texas (a couple of mini-deluges as well as the usual rains around July 4th weekend…our creeks/arroyos still running over a week later)…or more. We are used to drought conditions and mitigate fires every year (VFD and others). I’ve been in southwest or central Oregon in the summer when it is usually not raining (hubby took forestry courses at OSU so he knows what summer is like there), but what has been “engineered” so to speak for your area is criminal. Stay safe and mitigate what you can.
I’m certainly praying our Shivley family is safe.
Vid and update on the fire from a few hours ago:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bootleg-fire-oregon-threatens-vital-northern-california-power-grid-lines/
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