It’s been a record-breaking wildfire season for Oregon, with fires burning more than 1.8 million acres in the state. That total has stretched the state’s limited resources, while there’s also a nationwide shortage of available firefighters.
So it’s been an incredibly busy season for meteorologists at the National Weather Service, the federal agency responsible for live weather forecasts, including in hazardous conditions.
A map of active wildfires across Oregon at the National Weather Service building in Portland, Ore. on Sept. 5, 2024. It's been a record-breaking year for wildfires in the state in 2024.
Joni Land / OPB
When wildfires crop up, many federal, state and local agencies rely on NWS forecasts to predict how a fire will behave and, more importantly, what the risks are for nearby residents.
Joe Solomon has been a meteorologist in Pendleton for 30 years. He said Oregon can have busy or slow wildfire seasons, which can run from June or July through September or October, depending on the weather.
But 2024 has so far been an exceptional year, and scientists say climate change is making these fires more destructive and widespread than in previous years. As of Monday, the latest numbers from the Oregon Department of Forestry show there were 24 active large fires statewide.
“This is one of the busier, if not the busiest year we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Solomon said.
The culprit behind the wildfires in Eastern Oregon was unusually hot and dry weather — Solomon said temperatures in June and July were 4 to 6 degrees higher than average. The hot weather, combined with a large number of lightning strikes, created a tinderbox situation.
“All of a sudden, it seemed like all of Eastern Oregon was up in flames,” he said.
That includes the Durkee Fire in Malheur County and the Fall Fire in Harney County. The Durkee Fire burned nearly 300,000 acres, an area larger than Multnomah County.
This wildfire season has also been extremely busy for the NWS office in Portland. Rebecca Muessle has worked there since 2019, and said extreme heat and wildfires can be challenging to manage as a meteorologist.
In addition to providing safety information, they still have their every day duties, such as reporting wave heights and forecasts for airplane pilots.
“Those things don’t necessarily get to go to the wayside when we have super busy weather,” Muessle said. “When we are really active, we’ll bring in a significant number of people to help kind of distribute the workload.”
Noah Alviz, a meteorologist, prepares weather forecasts at the National Weather Service in Portland on Sept. 5, 2024.
Joni Land, Joni Land / OPB
In addition to forecasting from an office, Muessle is also an incident meteorologist, meaning she will provide on-the-ground forecasts from different weather situations. She will sleep in tents for days, providing information from wildfire situations.
The long hours required to be an NWS meteorologist — whether in the office or out in the field — can be a lot to manage. Like many NWS locations, the Portland office is short-staffed, and the challenge only becomes greater during weather emergencies.
“It definitely can become too much,” she said. “Come the end of the season, we’re all tired.”
That job has taken Muessle to fires all over the western United States, from Washington to California. This year, she was called out to Harney County for the Falls Fire.
“It was probably one of the hardest wildfires I’ve ever been on,” Muessle said. “It is exhausting, but it is so rewarding.”
Rewarding, she said, because incident meteorologists provide real-time information about the weather surrounding a wildfire, which can not only impact the fire but the personal safety of those trying to put it out. They provide forecasts to firefighters that help determine how quickly a fire is spreading and what the risks are to nearby homes and rescue crews.
“Our mission at the National Weather Service is to protect life property and enhance the U.S. economy,” she said. “That is a mission that we live, breathe and eat.”
After providing regular updates about a thunderstorm in the Willamette National Forest in July, firefighters personally thanked Muessle for keeping them safe.
“To actually hear that on the ground was really kind of touching,” she said. “We wouldn’t work the hours we do if we didn’t think that the overall job was rewarding.”
The meteorologists in Oregon don’t get much of a break before the cold weather settles in, and snow becomes their primary concern.
Muessle said extreme heat during the summer is relatively easy to forecast. The real challenge, she said, is figuring out exactly where, when, and how much ice and snow are going to fall in the winter.