Unstable weather will continue to fuel huge Oregon blaze
Source: AP
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Dry, unstable and windy conditions will keep fueling a massive wildfire in southern Oregon, forecasters said, as the largely uncontained blaze grows by miles each day.
The Bootleg Fire was just one of numerous wildfires burning across the U.S. West.
Crews had to flee the fire lines of the Oregon blaze late Thursday after a dangerous “fire cloud” started to collapse, threatening them with strong downdrafts and flying embers. An initial review Friday showed the Bootleg Fire destroyed 67 homes and 117 outbuildings overnight in one county. Authorities were still counting the losses in a second county where the flames are surging up to 4 miles (6 kilometers) a day.
The conflagration has forced 2,000 people to evacuate and is threatening 5,000 buildings, including homes and smaller structures in a rural area just north of the California border, fire spokeswoman Holly Krake said. Active flames are surging along 200 miles (322 kilometers) of the fire’s perimeter, she said, and it’s expected to merge with a smaller, but equally explosive fire by nightfall.
In this photo provided by the Bootleg Fire Incident Command, the Bootleg Fire burns at night near Highway 34 in southern Oregon on Thursday, July 15, 2021. Firefighters scrambled Friday to control a raging inferno in southeastern Oregon that's spreading miles a day in windy conditions, one of numerous wildfires across the U.S. West that are straining resources. The Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire burning in the U.S., has torched more than 377 square miles (976 square kilometers), and crews had little control of it. (Jason Pettigrew/Bootleg Fire Incident Command via AP)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/science-environment-and-nature-oregon-weather-4730654e68e0f29d029cb9db8f709b87
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Horrifying. Any DU'ers caught in this?
I love Oregon very much and it pains me (how I hate to use that term) to see this happening. I know a bit about what's going on there, with a big fire like Bootleg, and wind. Wildland firefighters have an axiom: "Wind changes everything." Part of my job on a fire lookout tower was to watch for wind shifts and weather changes and alert the crews on the fire. That axiom has a corollary, which wildland firefighters usually state as an acronym: F.E.A.R.. FEAR stands for Forget Everything And Run. But in more common usage FEAR is FUCK EVERYTHING AND RUN. And I've heard it on the tactical radio frequencies used on fires I was working. Firefighters dropping their packs - dropping everything except their fire shelters - and literally running for their lives. This is serious shit, folks. One of the most serious things this county faces. We just lost four precious years in addressing it. Personally, I thing we are beyond the tipping point. Way beyond the point of no return. Personally, I think we are fucked.
