Hundreds Evacuated as Lightning-Triggered Wildfires Spread Across Oregon

Dozens of wildfires were burning across Oregon on Friday after thunderstorms generated thousands of lightning strikes over a drought-affected landscape. Ted Pierce, manager of the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, said 140 new fires were reported on Wednesday and Thursday, burning over 30,000 acres so far. > "We’re still finding fires," Pierce said on Friday afternoon. The Oregon Office of Emergency Management reported that roughly 11,000 people were under one of three evacuation warning levels, with about 1,200 ordered to leave immediately. Smoke from the blazes spread across the Pacific Northwest, creating unhealthy air conditions in southwestern, central and northeastern Oregon. The state's peak wildfire season runs from July to September, and this year’s conditions were heightened by lower-than-average snowfall last winter and early melt amid unusually warm temperatures. Thunderstorms moved quickly, delivering only a tenth to a third of an inch of rain, insufficient to suppress fires. > "They were moving so quickly that we didn’t get a lot of accumulation," Rebecca Muessle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland, said. Strong winds and dry lightning associated with the storms ignited many of the new fires; more than 3,000 lightning strikes were recorded, according to the Weather Service. Among the ongoing incidents, the 13,000-acre East Evans Creek fire near Medford, described by Gert Zoutendijk, a spokesman for the Oregon state fire marshal, as the “first big fire of the season,” continues to force evacuations. The fire started on July 10 after a vehicle crash knocked over a power line. > "This one just went so fast with the winds and got out of control into terrain that wasn’t accessible to firefighters," Zoutendijk said.