A wildfire that started on Thursday morning in Malheur County’s Cow Valley has grown to 20,000 acres as of early Friday morning, prompting fire agencies to scramble to protect homes in the rural area.
The fire started around 7 a.m. on Thursday and is likely human-caused, according to incident reports from the Vale District Bureau of Land Management, which is responding to the blaze alongside local and state fire agencies. The Vale district reports that the fire is 0% contained.
Soon after it started, the fire headed toward the town of Brogan at a “high rate of speed,” according to the Malheur County Sheriff’s Office. A statement from the Oregon State Fire Marshal on Thursday night estimated that 30-50 homes were in danger, and the sheriff’s office urged residents in the area to prepare for evacuation.
Larisa Bogardus, a spokesperson for the Vale District Bureau of Land Management, said that BLM staff, local fire crews and contracted dozer companies worked through the night to build fire breaks to protect the town.
The threat to the town of Brogan also prompted Oregon’s state fire marshal on Thursday evening to send the Multnomah and Umatilla structural-fire task forces to help prepare the town in case the fire drew closer.
John Hendricks, a spokesperson for the fire marshal, said the combined task forces have 28 firefighters, 10 engines and a water tender, all of which arrived on the scene Friday morning.
Bogardus said that the task forces will help the residents of Brogan prepare “defensible spaces” around homes that will stop or slow fires before they reach buildings.
Oregon wildfires could be seen burning from the air, as in this photo from a Hawaiian Airlines pilot taken around midnight on Thursday.Courtesy of Laurie Nolan
The Cow Valley fire is only one of several large wildfires currently burning in Oregon, including the nearly 14,000-acre Larch Creek fire in Wasco County, which remains completely uncontained, and the nearly 4,000-acre Salt Creek fire in Jackson County, which is 16% contained. There are currently about 22 separate large wildfires burning in Oregon totaling more than 145,277 acres, according to data from the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, a group of federal and state organizations that tracks natural disasters and helps coordinate responses to them.
Oregonians can expect a busy and long fire season, said John Saltenberger, the fire weather program manager at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.
“We are anticipating that the potential for large, costly fires is greater than normal,” Saltenberger said, adding that a combination of low humidity, high temperatures and buildups of flammable material contributed to the risk in Oregon.
“When you look at the combination of all those things coming together,” he said, “it just makes them ripe for the potential for large, costly fires.”
— Tatum Todd covers crime and public safety. Reach them at ttodd@oregonian.com, or 503-221-4313.
