A stark line between burned and unburned land on the hills surrounding I-84 east near Durkee, Ore., July 31, 2024. The Durkee fire was started by a lightning strike in mid-July and burned nearly 295,000 acres of grassland over the course of two weeks.
Anna Lueck / OPB
Unseasonably cool temperatures and rain storms quelled an eventful fire season in Eastern Oregon. But forecasters warn that drier conditions could return, bringing back fire risk through the end of September.
A storm is moving through eastern and Central Oregon Friday and Saturday, bringing up to three-quarters of an inch of rain in some areas. While it could also cause lightning for some parts of the region, National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Solomon said it should be a net benefit for Eastern Oregon.
“Any rain we get helps to moisten the fuels, which would slow fire growth,” he said. “We’re not talking (about a) season ending event, as much as just kind of a slowing of fire spread due to moister fuels.”
Fire ravaged Eastern Oregon in July. The Durkee Fire, the largest in the state has burned nearly 300,000 acres in Baker and Malheur counties since it ignited on July 17 and briefly spurred evacuations for city of Huntington residents. Other blazes like the Cow Valley, Telephone and Falls fires collectively burned hundreds of thousands more acres.
But firefighters have largely turned it around in recent weeks, not only in Eastern Oregon but across the Northwest. A run of cool and wet weather has allowed fires to be nearly entirely contained. Durkee is 95% contained as of Friday while other major fires range between 80% and 100% contained.
Joe Bonk, a fire meteorologist for the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, said the firefighting has been aided by back-to-back low-pressure systems that have brought lower temperatures and precipitation to the region.
“Two systems back-to-back is very unusual,” he said.
While the weather started working in firefighters’ favor rather than against it, both Solomon and Bonk cautioned that the run of cooler temperatures is unlikely to continue.
“We are still looking at some late summer weather for next week, which means conditions will dry out again,” Solomon said. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
Bonk said the fire risk is less about reigniting the contained fires and more connected to the creation of new fires or the spread of fires that hadn’t been contained. Fire season isn’t expected to end until mid-to-late September, he said.
“We still have plenty of time to go.”